USE OF TIME IN QUESTION PERIOD
STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
MUNICIPAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST ACT
CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, MINISTRY OF LABOUR
The House met at 2 p.m.
Prayers.
COMMITTEE PROCEEDINGS
Mr. Speaker: Before proceeding with routine proceedings, I would like to address a subject that was raised on Thursday last by the member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway), who rose on a question of privilege concerning meetings with the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie), his staff and the editorial staff of the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail, at which the member alleges the minister gave information concerning Crown Trust Co., Seaway Trust Co. and Greymac Trust Co., which had not been given to the members of the assembly.
Since Thursday, I have given very careful consideration to the complex aspects of parliamentary privilege as it relates to this matter, and I have had an opportunity to review the rulings of a number of Speakers of the House of Commons of Canada on this subject. My ruling deals only with the technical and procedural aspects of the matter and not in any way with the merits of the situation or the allegations; that is, the question which I must decide is not whether or not there was ministerial impropriety but whether the situation or allegations should in fact be considered a matter of privilege.
Mr. Speaker Lamoureux dealt with this matter in a ruling on October 30, 1969. In his ruling he stated: "The question has often been raised whether parliamentary privilege imposes on ministers an obligation to deliver communications to the public through the House of Commons or to make these announcements or statements in the House rather than outside the chamber. The question has been asked whether honourable members are entitled, as part of their parliamentary privilege, to receive such information ahead of the general public. I can find no precedent to justify this suggestion. There may be, in such circumstances, a question of propriety or a question of courtesy. There may be a grievance. But in my view there cannot be a question of privilege."
Mr. Lamoureux's ruling is in my opinion the definitive one, but there are a number of others to the same effect by Speakers Michener, Jerome and Sauvé, among others, as well as Speakers in other jurisdictions.
In finding that there does not exist a prima facie case of privilege, I am not preventing further discussion by the House of the matters in issue. The effect is to refuse precedent to this discussion but not to prevent it. No barrier is raised to the presentation of this matter under different circumstances on another occasion.
The member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) supported the member for Renfrew North in his remarks but dealt mainly with questions concerning the proceedings in the standing committee on administration of justice. On a number of occasions I have ruled that procedural difficulties that arise in standing and select committees ought to be settled in the committee and not in the House. It is clearly established that matters alleged to have arisen in committee but not reported by the committee may not be brought to the attention of the House as a question of privilege. There being no report from the justice committee, the matters which occurred in the committee may not be raised as a question of privilege in the House.
Finally, the member for Renfrew North rose on another question of privilege on Friday last concerning the release of the report of the Hospital for Sick Children review committee. As I stated before, although it is a courtesy to the assembly for a member to release information in the assembly before releasing it to the press or the public, it is not a breach of the privileges or rules of the assembly if this does not happen. In this case, the Minister of Health (Mr. Grossman) stated his concern that the contents of the report became public before its release and denied making the information concerning the report available to anyone other than those at the lockup and certain ministers. He promised a thorough investigation to determine how the leak occurred. The assembly must accept the minister's word on that account.
Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate very much the points you have drawn to my attention and I am quite prepared to accept the reference, particularly to the Lamoureux ruling. I just want to indicate -- and I regret doing so in the absence of the Minister of Health, who gave this assembly an undertaking on Friday to report back on the second question I raised -- that, upon reflection, the more I think about what happened here on Friday with respect to the serious breach of the lockup and the release of the report on Sick Kids Hospital, the more I feel you should consider some review of the procedures that govern these lockups. It has to be assumed that there is a very limiting control on that kind of information.
When I read the early edition of the Toronto Star on Friday, it was clear to me that someone at the Star was in possession of that entire document many hours before the lockup began. I would hope you might invite the Minister of Health to comment on the rumours about this place that he met the day before with certain people from the Star, one of whom I have heard was the reporter in question, Ms. Susan Pigg. I have not been able to confirm or corroborate that, but I take the minister at his word that he is prepared to make a full report, and I invite him to deal with that particular rumour which concerns me a great deal.
In conclusion, it is obvious to me that this very sensitive document, which was felt to be so sensitive by the Minister of Health that it had to be controlled in its release through a lockup, was leaked to one newspaper many hours in advance of that lockup commencing. I consider that to be a very serious breach of whatever rules and regulations govern the lockup procedure, and I would like to have that procedure carefully reviewed so it might not happen again.
Mr. Speaker: I must rule that the member for Renfrew North did not have a point of privilege or a point of order. However, I did allow him to continue so that the Minister of Health might take note of his observations. I must further point out to all the honourable members that the matter of the lockup is beyond my jurisdiction as Speaker of this assembly. However, I am sure the minister will take note of your remarks and will act accordingly.
Mr. McClellan: With your indulgence, sir, if I may express for no more than 30 seconds the same concern raised by my colleague the member for Renfrew North --
Mr. Speaker: With all respect, I have dealt with it and your concerns are noted and will be noted by the minister. I am sure he will report back as quickly as possible.
Mr. McClellan: The allegation is a serious one; that the report was leaked the previous day to the Star bureau at La Scala restaurant makes it even worse --
Mr. Speaker: Order. That question may be asked at a more appropriate time. Again, I tell all honourable members, the matter that has been raised is beyond my jurisdiction.
2:10 p.m.
ORAL QUESTIONS
BILD PROGRAM
Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Treasurer about the so-called "bilge" program that he is so proud of, particularly in relation to the comments of Mr. Blair Tully, secretary of the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development. The Treasurer stated that he was very encouraged with the BILD program's success in stimulating the participation of the private sector and other levels of government. We have already pointed out on numerous occasions how fatuous that comment is.
Yesterday, Mr. Tully admitted that the outside reaction in the federal government and the private sector had scarcely lived up to the Treasurer's expectations. According to the Globe and Mail, Mr. Tully blamed the private sector and said that it has "got to get its act together." Had he been honest, Mr. Tully would also have explained the reasons why other sectors are not participating in BILD, namely, they see it as nothing more than a political ploy to shuffle old money under new names.
The other interesting thing Mr. Tully said was that the government is not keeping track of the jobs created by this program, which ultimately will involve billions of dollars. Can the Treasurer tell us, where are all the new jobs that were supposed to flow from this program? Where are the new co-operative ventures between the federal and provincial governments and between private industry and the provincial government? What accomplishments can the Treasurer point to and say, "This would not have happened without BILD"?
Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, my friend has always had trouble reading anything. He gets a "g" in the BILD program. That is a "d," not a "g." I realize it will take some time for him to sound out the letters carefully.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: A little phonetics.
Hon. F. S. Miller: A little phonetics, yes. When I was answering a question, yesterday I believe, somebody was alleging -- I think it was the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Peterson) -- that we were not up to the $150-million figure in the first year, and I explained how we had preflowed some funds. I went on to point out that the amount of $750 million over five years, or roughly $150 million a year, was the provincial contribution of new money. There would be --
Mr. T. P. Reid: It is not new money. It was all out in the employment development fund.
Hon. F. S. Miller: No. There would be money from ministries of the province from regular budgets. There would be money from the federal government. There would be money, one would hope, from the private sector. I think the record will show that I said quite quickly that so far these were not up to matching ours, that we were still talking to the federal government and working, we hope, particularly with Mr. Johnston in his new position, towards a greater degree of co-operation with them.
There was a sense of suspicion, I detected, at the federal level when we brought out the program, and there was a year or so during which the federal government was saying to all the provinces of this country, "If you start anything unilaterally, we will not be in it."
They are in such deep trouble these days in Ottawa, they are suddenly saying: "There is a new spirit of co-operation and discussion going on these days. We want to be with you on some of the projects you are bringing along. We would like to find ways of sharing some of the great ideas coming from Ontario." So one will find in the next month or so, I am reasonably sure, that there will be meetings with our federal friends, where they will not necessarily admit their money was used co-operatively with ours, but where they will start down that road.
At this moment, my first minister and the Minister of Industry and Trade (Mr. Walker) are in the great city of Cambridge opening the Ontario Centre for Computer-Aided Design and Computer-Aided Manufacturing. I will be there tomorrow. I believe the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) will be there on Thursday. There will be many people coming to that.
Mr. Rae: If it takes you three days to open it, that's got to be a hell of a ribbon.
Mr. T. P. Reid: Is she the cleanup?
Hon. F. S. Miller: She may be the cleanup hitter. She will knock it out of the park. She will have a home run, because when she steps up to the bat the member will know he has been hit.
Interjections.
Hon. F. S. Miller: Is there anything else I can do to help you, Bette?
Hon. Miss Stephenson: That kind of help, I do not need.
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I think the minister has answered the question.
Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, the Treasurer seems to take offence whenever we suggest that the BILD program is nothing but old money under a new name, but he knows that is exactly what it is. The largest single project in the BILD portfolio is the radial road program, which everyone knows is not new. People laugh when they see BILD signs at every culvert on the highway.
Mr. Speaker: I presume you do have a question.
Mr. Boudria: Yes, sir. Of the $38 million the Treasurer claims municipalities have committed to BILD, more than $24 million is for the Ottawa and Toronto convention centres, which predate BILD. These centres also account for $30 million of the $84 million which BILD says the feds have committed and for $75 million of the private sector commitment.
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I will have to ask the honourable member to place his question.
Mr. Boudria: Let me ask the Treasurer a very simple question. If he really wants BILD to be taken seriously, why does he not stand in this House and tell the people how much new money will actually go into BILD? Why does he not tell us now what is left when he takes out the 400 series highways, Darlington, the convention centres and the liquor warehouses? Is there really anything left, or have the citizens of this province been let down again?
Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I was talking to Mr. Tully this morning, because any time a civil servant is quoted in the press, he has some sense of concern. I did not hear any denials from him, but I thought he felt perhaps he was a little more positive than he sounded. There is no question that we were anxious to see more money; I said that yesterday, and he said that. That is fair. We are working on more private money.
But when my colleagues start asking questions about BILD, I feel a lot better. If we are really blowing it, they ignore it. When we are making political marks, they come after us. That is what they are doing.
Mr. Roy: That is exactly what happened with the trust companies.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, I think the Treasurer has just described the BILD program exactly as we describe it. The government makes political marks and no economic marks.
I would like to ask the Treasurer what impact the BILD program has had, since it was introduced, on the very deep structural problems which exist, whether in the machinery sector, the auto parts sector or the agriculture sector. What impact has BILD had on the structural problems, namely, investment and jobs in Ontario?
If the Treasurer wants to look at the statistics, he will know that from May 19 to December of last year, we lost 20,000 jobs in the agricultural sector, 82,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector, 31,000 jobs in the construction sector and the list goes on. What has happened, and what impact has BILD had on the very deep structural problems in the economy?
Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I always find it intriguing when the honourable member's party, which is a party I have always admired, because in its own way -- I qualify that as the Deputy Premier (Mr. Welch) looks at me askance: when I admire them it is because they do focus on longer-term problems a good deal of the time. I have often been very impressed by the quality of criticism that comes from them. I do not assume all criticism is invalid. When one talks, as they do at great length, about the need for economic strategies, one then starts looking at the medium and long terms. They then see us bring in something with medium- to long-term potential and say, "And what has it done in its first year or its second year to solve all those problems?"
Mr. Cooke: It has been two years, though. It was a three-month strategy in 1981.
Hon. F. S. Miller: Just a second. It was not a three-month strategy, my friend.
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
2:20 p.m.
Hon. F. S. Miller: I am answering the member's question. The Innovation Development for Employment Advancement Corp., for example, was in that. It took some time to get together and put a --
Mr. Cooke: You had a part-time employee as its head.
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I sense the member does not really want an answer to that question.
Mr. Boudria: Getting back to the question I asked the minister: In view of the fact that federal officials stated they were informed of the BILD strategy and what they call the unilateral declaration from the Premier to the Prime Minister on the same date as the program was made public, and in view of the fact that municipal officials across the province have complained they were never approached by the province for their views, can the Treasurer blame anyone for thinking the government had only political considerations in mind when it brought in BILD? Can he not see that he has no one to blame for the programs but himself?
Hon. F. S. Miller: I would be delighted to have no one to blame but myself. That means I will be heaped with praise, because it is a very good program.
I do not know where my friend got the information he just read into the record about a unilateral declaration by the Premier of this province. I know there was a letter of great length sent, I believe, to the first minister of Canada by my Premier. I am sure I am correct when I say we had staff liaison, as one should have, well in advance of the actual public discussion because we were keenly aware of the need for federal participation.
We were also keenly aware of the temper of the times during which, if the federal government felt somebody was announcing something it could not attach its banners to, it would not play ball. That has changed. It has changed its ways. But we did take those steps because we genuinely wanted its participation. Why should we not? If one looks at the Department of Regional Economic Expansion programs or whatever, they have greatly assisted other parts of Canada at the expense of Ontario. We felt that with the BILD program we were bringing legitimate reasons for federal-provincial co-operation. I still feel so.
Mr. Boudria: Why did you not consult ahead of time?
Hon. F. S. Miller: We did, and I was part of that consultation. The member does not know whether we consulted. He only has somebody's record. I know we consulted. I was there.
ONTARIO YOUTH SECRETARIAT
Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Treasurer concerning the Ontario youth secretariat. Two years ago, when the Treasurer tabled the report on the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development, this is what was done in the first year: The secretariat was allocated $750,000 from BILD for youth employment counselling, and the Ontario Manpower Commission was to provide an additional $500,000 in the 1981-82 year. These awards were to be made on a basis of 50 per cent of the operating cost to a maximum of $60,000 per centre.
The public accounts show that in the 1981-82 fiscal year only $298,000 was spent by BILD for youth employment counselling. This was less than 40 per cent of the target of $750,000; quite a shortfall. Will the Treasurer inform the House why there was this incredible shortfall? Can he inform the House whether the moneys that were originally allocated will be able to be carried over from last year? Will the Treasurer inform us as to whether he intends to meet his original goal?
Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the original shortfalls in some of the spending programs will be simple to explain because, if one goes out on January 21, 1981, or whatever day it was, and announces a program that has as many components as BILD did, one cannot expect that the spending will peak overnight.
Obviously in the first year we had the problem of organizing the technology centres and the Innovation Development for Employment Advancement Corp., and defining the roles, and the problem of setting up things such as the youth employment counselling centres. I am told we now have 23 centres across the province, and they are very successful.
In my second year, I am faced with the reverse problem to the first year; that is, more demand for funds than my budget has in it. I believe I am currently limited to $160.8 million for this year, although $150 million would be the normal expected one-fifth share of the targeted figure. I am also told that even though the Chairman of Management Board (Mr. McCague) has allocated only $160.8 million, it is likely that our drawdowns by the ministries will exceed that and I may have to ask for some reapportionment of funds.
I only say those things because obviously, as BILD continues to succeed, the demands for moneys are growing as people see, as in the case of these centres, the success that comes with them. The member cannot expect the centres to be an overnight success. As they became a success, more people wanted to copy them and the demands increased.
Mr. Mancini: The Treasurer's briefing book, brought from the recent estimates debate, lists a five-year, $11.7-million commitment by BILD to the youth employment counselling program. This is a slight improvement on the $11.2 million listed in the BILD document last January, however, it is far less than the $15-million commitment that was listed in some early BILD publications.
Given the trends in youth unemployment, which have led to 200,000 young people, or 18.7 per cent of the labour force for this group, being unemployed province-wide, with rates twice as high in certain areas, how does the Treasurer justify this reduced commitment?
If it was felt that a commitment of $15 million was needed in January 1981, when youth employment was 13.6 per cent, how can this government possibly feel that less is needed when the rate is more than five percentage points higher? How can the government let the young people of Ontario down again?
Hon. F. S. Miller: I was hoping Mr. Speaker would point out that whoever writes these questions might précis them a wee bit before members stand up. The punctuation sometimes is a bit painful.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Précis the answers.
Mr. Cooke: We cannot all go to New York for speech therapy.
Mr. T. P. Reid: Would the minister be willing for us all to go to New York for speech classes at the expense of the taxpayers?
Mr. Speaker: Order. I point out to the honourable members that we have spent very close to 25 minutes on the first two questions.
Hon. F. S. Miller: Twenty-two minutes of which was spent reading them.
Mr. Peterson: The minister did not learn that in the personality course.
Hon. F. S. Miller: No. I have been reflecting the honourable member's happy countenance here for some time, and I get greyer and greyer day by day.
Mr. Speaker: Now to the question, please.
Hon. F. S. Miller: Since the BILD document was brought out, the thing that continues to amaze me is how well we have been able to stay with the original plan as opposed to variations on it. It was produced in a three-month time frame, and in a broad-brush way, to show the general objectives of the province and the mechanisms to achieve them.
Very early in the game we made a very conscious decision at the BILD board that it was not to be locked into any one figure for any one program, because we had to judge the success of the program and the alternatives that were coming through in government.
The members will see that of the $50 million that was passed in supplementary estimates last week, under section 39 of the Unemployment Insurance Act, $5 million was aimed at certain training, basically for youth and unemployed people. That is $5 million doing some of the things the $50 million was to do too.
Second, not all the centres are up to the targeted $66,000-a-year funding, and they will not be until they get going. Most important of all, if we look at the success rate of those that are functioning, I am told they are having about a 50 per cent success rate in their counselling, and I would say it is one of the wisest uses of dollars. Therefore, whatever figure is in the budget today is always subject to review as the demand improves.
2:30 p.m.
Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, the Treasurer stated a couple of moments ago that we cannot expect BILD to turn things around overnight. Can the Treasurer explain, then, why we have to accept that youth unemployment has gone up by 62,000 in the last year? Can we not at least expect things to be going forward rather than backward, if BILD is supposed to be working and jobs are supposed to be created? The unemployment rate is 18.7 per cent among our young people.
Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, my colleague is keenly aware of all the kinds of forces that change the factors for youth. First, the rules of many places of work put the young people with the least seniority back on the street if there is a slowdown. The honourable member would accept that. One of the problems that the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) has been worried about -- we all have been -- is the ability to keep apprentices functioning during these slowdowns, again because very often there are predetermined and agreed-upon rules for layoffs. I hate to see the training of young people destroyed by these turndowns.
The member opposite has a great deal of fun showing me that there has been a drop in employment. I have never tried to deny that. The drop has not been as deep as it would have been had we not acted, and we are taking steps to attack a number of the structural problems he is so wont to bring before this House.
Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I can invite the Treasurer to share some information with those of us who are trying to sort out the promise and the performance of BILD. Would he not agree that there is some very considerable variance between the promise of 1981, when he said that $15 million would be committed over a period of five years to youth employment counselling services in this province, and two years later when we are told in his estimates that in fact this $15-million commitment will now be substantially less, something in the order of $11.7 million?
Unlike 1981, when the unemployment rate for the youth of this province was 13.6 per cent, now, two years later, long after the election is past, when his commitment is reduced by $3.5 million, youth unemployment is at 18.7 per cent with fully 200,000 young Ontarians from Muskoka to Kenora out of work.
How can the minister explain this sharply downward direction in the curve of his commitment from $15 million to $11.7 million at a time when the youth unemployment curve points sharply upward? How is that not a contradiction in the promise offered to the young people of Ontario before they went to the polls in 1981?
Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, would that I could match the poetic language of my colleague. He said, "promise and performance." He is a fan of alliteration, because I looked at "the Conservative casserole," which he called BILD the other night, and even my staff liked it. I must say that he has a way with a word. I would suggest, though, that --
Interjections.
Hon. F. S. Miller: Nuts to you, too.
Mr. Speaker: Never mind the interjections, please.
Hon. F. S. Miller: At least I am a high-grade nut.
The truth is that the member has taken $15 million and divided it into convenient annual instalments of $3 million each. Our first curve was that way. Now we are saying that the curve gains momentum as the centres come on stream. A present projection may not be the final one at the end of five years; it is adjusted every year. According to the latest estimate, we will have at least 50 centres functioning by the five-year mark and their budgets at that point will exceed the whole average annual requirement for money. The member should not prejudge the total spending in that area. He should wait until we have accomplished our objectives.
UNEMPLOYMENT
Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Treasurer who asks, "Why me?" The answer is because he is not doing anything about the economy. It is the biggest issue in this province at the present time. That is why him.
I would like to ask the Treasurer a question with respect specifically to the cost of unemployment to the Ontario economy. We know the government is impervious to understanding the human cost, but perhaps if we talk about the economic cost to the province and to the Treasury, the Treasurer will come to grips with this problem.
Over $10 billion in wages is being lost to this province and $1.5 billion in federal and provincial taxes. Also, over $4 billion is being paid out in unemployment insurance and welfare payments by both the federal and provincial governments.
With the costs so astronomically high, and being projected by the Treasurer as remaining that high throughout the entire period of 1983, what will it take to make him recognize that we are in the middle of an economic crisis? The costs are intolerable. He has to act by introducing money and investment into the acronyms and initials in the programs he so proudly shuffles and displays before this Legislature.
Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the member is trying to fall back into that convenient pew he thinks he and his party occupy exclusively, the pew of concern for people. Whether he likes it or not, for the last 40 years this party has represented the concerns of the people of this province, and it will keep on representing those concerns.
In his heart the member knows that. Actually, he has to work himself up to these phoney attacks. Somehow he has the idea that we luxuriate in the pain and misery of people, that it is a pleasure for us to pay those moneys out. That is baloney. We are working hard. But we have a different set of beliefs. We understand the role of government in the economy.
We do not believe the entire economy should be managed by government, as the member would have it. We trust the private sector and the consumer a lot more than the member does, and we believe the signs are there that they are leading us out of the current very heavy recession.
Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, every economic indicator and every report from the private sector shows that consumers are saving a heck of a lot more money than they are spending, because they are terrified they will lose their jobs. Every survey shows that the private sector is looking to government for leadership. Whatever government it may be, the private sector is looking to it. If the Treasurer is going to get consumers to start spending and the private sector to start investing, government has to show leadership.
Mr. Speaker: Question, please.
Mr. Rae: When is this government going to show the leadership it so proudly talks about? When is it going to start investing in jobs and in the future, and start spending some of the money the private sector and consumers are not prepared to spend at the present time?
Hon. F. S. Miller: When we are in the middle of a difficult time, it is easy to lose faith in the things that work, it is easy to step in and destroy the system that works pretty well. There are a lot of people around the world who still envy this country.
The member does not exactly improve the problem when he stands and delivers what my Premier (Mr. Davis) calls the theology of doom and gloom. I thought he would have learned from the other fellows opposite that it does not pay off for them and that it will not pay off for him.
Mr. Rae: We are asking the Treasurer to do something.
Hon. F. S. Miller: We are doing things. The member does not like to face the fact that since this government brought in Bill 179 we have seen a steady reduction in inflation in this province, a steady reduction in interest rates in Canada and a steady improvement in the expectations of Canadians. That is a major step towards the recovery.
Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, all indications are that unemployment will be at least 12.5 per cent in the next year. Consumers are not spending. As well, the Treasurer has indicated that his revenues from the sales tax are down $130 million from what was projected.
2:40 p.m.
Given that consumer resistance to spending is one of the largest problems involved in consumer spending and creating jobs, is he reconsidering his ill-fated increase and expansion of the seven per cent sales tax to almost every product in the province? is he considering any selective cuts in the sales tax to spur consumer spending in Ontario, thus leading to an increase in the capacity to create jobs in the private sector?
Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to hear those questions. The last time I made a selective cut in the sales tax I was hammered by the member's leader for taking actions which, in his opinion, did nothing but shift the economy around a bit and did nothing to help anybody.
Mr. T. P. Reid: They were not needed then. They are needed now.
Hon. F. S. Miller: They were needed then. If the member does not think they were, he had better go and consult with the people who wrote in --
Mr. T. P. Reid: We need it now and nobody asked you to expand your sales tax base.
Hon. F. S. Miller: The answer of course is --
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Will the Treasurer address the question, please?
Hon. F. S. Miller: When the budget process starts each year, I look at every single aspect of the budget. Of course, I am not going to speculate today about any selective cuts. That would be a foolish thing to do. I do not think this is the time in the economy for some of those, but I am not going to rule out anything until I finish my budget process.
Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Treasurer is aware that we in this party have confidence in the people and in the future of the province, but we do not have confidence in the government to work its way out of our problems.
Does the Treasurer recall the statement by the Conference Board of Canada that wage controls are holding back a recovery in this country and are not helping the matter at all?
It is now over a year since Inco and Falconbridge announced major layoffs in the Sudbury area. There has been a massive shutdown of the Inco operations since July. The Falconbridge operation is just recently back at work. Why have the Treasurer and his government not taken a single substantive action to turn the economy around in the Sudbury basin?
Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I think even the member will admit that my colleague the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier) is seen by many people in the north as this government's voice. He has just said $150 million has been allocated to that area. My friend knows full well one cannot artificially stimulate a demand for nickel and that is really where it is at. He also knows, which he hates to admit, that socialist dogma is undermining the world price of nickel because there is a bunch of socialist countries exporting regardless of cost into the marketplace to earn western dollars to buy other goods.
FUNDING FOR EDUCATION
Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Education with respect to Bill 127 and the province's commitment to education in general.
I would like to ask how the minister can expect the people of the province to take her at her word and the Premier at his word with respect to the seriousness of their dedication and commitment to educational funding when, since 1975, Ontario has reduced its share of educational spending from 61 per cent to 50 per cent in the province, and from 33 per cent to 15 per cent in Metro, and when -- this is the figure that really shocks -- it is now clear the province is spending less per pupil in 1982 than it was spending in 1980?
That has nothing to do with declining enrolment. That is a per capita figure. How can the minister expect us to take her at her word when she says she is taking education seriously and has a commitment to funding?
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I would like very much to ask the honourable member where he got the figure that we are spending less per pupil. The amount being spent per pupil has increased annually for the last decade and we have been working diligently to try to keep up with the increasing cost of education, which has increased more rapidly than the consumer price index has over the past decade. In fact, the provincial contribution has matched the increase across the board and has been higher than the CPI increase for the past decade. We are trying diligently to keep it there.
Mr. Rae: The per-pupil figure in Metropolitan Toronto shows an absolute decline in funding from this province from 1982 and 1980. If the minister wants to check her figures with respect to the difference between 1980 and 1982 for Metro Toronto, that is exactly what she will find.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: That is not what you said.
Mr. Rae: There is a decline in Metro -- it is undeniable -- between 1982 and 1980 with respect --
Hon. Miss Stephenson: You didn't say Metropolitan Toronto; you said Ontario.
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. If we could just devote some attention to the member for York South while he places his question.
Mr. Rae: The minister will know that as a result of Bill 127 the school board of the city of Toronto is going to be required to lay off teachers. The minister will also know that the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education study which was published yesterday shows that over two thirds of the population of this province, all income groups with the sole exception of corporate executives, believe that we should be taking advantage of declining enrolment to maintain teachers, to reduce class sizes and to provide special services rather than firing teachers, which is the approach of this government.
I would like to ask the minister, in the light of that OISE survey, which shows the overwhelming majority of Ontarians in favour of improving quality and retaining surplus teachers, how can she justify a decision with respect to Bill 127, which will result directly in the layoff of teachers in Toronto?
Hon. Miss Stephenson: There is one rather important question which the OISE survey forgot to ask; that was to ask the taxpayers of the province if they would like to have their taxes raised in order to increase the number of teachers employed or in order to support, in additional measure, the increasing cost of education.
The member did not designate Metropolitan Toronto in his first question. He alluded to the fact that he was talking about all of Ontario, and he is wrong in terms of all of Ontario. However, I would ask the member to simply assess the increase in assessment within Metropolitan Toronto over the past year, which of course relates directly to the level of provincial grant. Since that was very significant, then there was indeed a reduction in provincial grant in order that other boards might have an increase of their support from 95 per cent of the total cost to 97 per cent of the total cost.
Mr. Cunningham: Mr. Speaker, in view of continuing discussions that have been presented to the minister from members of all three parties of the Legislature, from school boards, students and teachers, in view of the continuing disparity that exists between urban and rural areas and areas of commercial assessment and residential assessment, and of course the attendant difficulties with Bill 127, would the minister not agree that the time might be very appropriate to appoint a select committee of this Legislature to involve members of all three parties, in the most nonpartisan way we possibly can, and to examine the very complex and controversial issue of financing our schools through the 1980s in Ontario?
Would that not be the most objective solution to this particular problem?
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, in the best of all possible worlds, and with the best of all possible intent on the part of the members of the opposition, would they promise to address this problem in a totally nonpartisan way? After their consideration of Bill 127, which has been totally partisan on both sides, I have to decline the invitation.
Mr. Rae: If anybody has turned Bill 127 into a partisan issue, it is the Minister of Education.
Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I was asked a question by the Minister of Education and I say, of course I will address it --
Mr. Speaker: Order. The member is supposed to ask the questions.
2:50 p.m.
Mr. Rae: After the speech the minister gave at the St. David Progressive Conservative Association in 1982, there could be no question as to which minister and which party has attempted to turn this into a partisan question. It is the Minister of Education.
In the light of the meeting which is taking place tomorrow with the Premier (Mr. Davis) and the parents' group -- which is, as the minister knows so well, a genuinely nonpartisan group; in political terms it is a nonpartisan group and the minister knows it -- what will it take for her to change her mind on Bill 127, to withdraw that legislation and replace it with something that provides for some fairness in funding for education right across this province and in Metropolitan Toronto?
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, Bill 127 is in fact designed to provide for greater fairness in the distribution of funding in Metropolitan Toronto, based upon the principles which were introduced 25 years ago to this area and which have indeed profited educational programs in Metropolitan Toronto during that entire 25 years.
It seems only reasonable that the boards which jointly come together to determine the way in which assessments should be levied should have some responsibility for determining the way in which the expenditure of the moneys collected can be distributed.
Bill 127 has been through innumerable hours of debate, of public hearing, of examination -- critical examination, I must say -- and some very significant amendments have been made to it. It is indeed a matter of fairness for the entire Metropolitan Toronto area and I will listen carefully to the group tomorrow.
I am delighted to be reassured by the leader of the New Democratic Party, whose party is part and parcel of the sign campaign which is going on right at the moment, I know for a fact, and indeed was responsible for the introduction of partisan political debate related to the subject last May.
Interjections.
[Later]
Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I just want to put on the record that the figures we have received from the Ministry of Education show that in Metropolitan Toronto in 1980, the ministry expended $608 per pupil and in 1982 it spent $590 per pupil.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I will respond to that point of order. The honourable member, of course, has failed to complete the equation I asked him to complete, and that was the increase in assessments in Metropolitan Toronto which made that possible in terms of the wider distribution of more funds to other parts of the province.
Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations has the answer to a question asked previously.
Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry for the delay, I am just shaken by the thought that anyone would believe that party would encourage that sort of thing. I cannot accept it.
Interjections.
Hon. Mr. Elgie: You did not, did you? Did you really mean that? What can one believe in any more? One cannot have trust in anybody any more.
Mr. Speaker: Now to the answer.
STATUS OF RENTAL BUILDINGS
Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, yesterday there were some questions asked with respect to certain properties in Ottawa and Kitchener. These matters do not as yet fall within the jurisdiction of the ministry, but I have inquired of the Residential Tenancy Commission and I am advised that as of the present time the commission has not received applications for these properties for rent review, so it appears the commission currently has no jurisdiction.
However, I am informally advised with respect to these matters as follows:
First, the Southvale Crescent property in Ottawa. These buildings were sold recently by Mastercraft Development Corp., which took back the mortgage as part of the purchase price. The property was being managed by Maysfield Property Management on behalf of Kilderkin.
It would appear that Kilderkin may be in a cash-flow deficiency position in the operation of the buildings, resulting in at least the mortgage held by Mastercraft going into default. It would appear that Mastercraft notified the tenants of the default and directed them to pay their rents to Mastercraft. Maysfield at the same time directed them to continue paying their rent to Maysfield.
Because of this contradiction, it would appear that Mastercraft made application to the Supreme Court of Ontario, resulting in an order of the court appointing it to collect rents. If this is so, tenants would be safe in paying their rents in accordance with that court order.
If in fact no court order exists, tenants would then be well advised to seek legal counsel in the matter.
With respect to 11 Overlea Drive in Kitchener, although this property is not the subject of an application to the Residential Tenancy Commission, I am advised that it was acquired by a numbered company, 500887 Ontario Ltd., from Tresilian Developments Ltd. by grant registered as No. 718893 on December 31, 1981. At the time this property was subject to mortgages as follows:
No. 556430 registered November 13, 1975, from Tresilian Developments Ltd. in favour of Victoria and Grey Trust Co. in the amount of $2,030,000, bearing interest at 11.75 per cent, expiring November 1, 1978. Second mortgage No. 643692 registered November 15, 1978, from Tresilian Developments Ltd. to Victoria and Grey Trust in the amount of $500,000, bearing interest at 11 per cent, due November 15, 1983.
By instrument No. 644435, registered November 23, 1978, an extension agreement was entered into between Tresilian Developments and Victoria and Grey Trust with respect to one of the above mortgages in the amount of $2,010,000 at a rate of 10.5 per cent, expiring November 15, 1983. It is presumably this mortgage that is at present in arrears. If that is the case, it would appear that Victoria and Grey Trust Co. is merely exercising its rights as a mortgagee, stepping in to attorn the rents due to the default under its mortgage.
My further information with regard to the property is that on the same day as 500887 Ontario Ltd. acquired title to the property, two additional mortgages were registered as follows:
No. 718894 registered December 31, 1981, in favour of Seaway Trust Co. in the amount of $4,075,000, bearing interest at the rate of 15 per cent, payable monthly at $50,815.25, from February 1, 1982, to and including December 1, 1982. The second mortgage, 718895, registered December 31, 1981, from the same company in favour of Kilderkin Investments Ltd. in the amount of $6,846,000, bearing interest at the rate of 15 per cent, payable monthly at $85,311.15, to and including November 30, 1986.
A corporate search of 500887 Ontario Ltd. indicates the sole director and officer is one David A. Allport, who is solicitor for the company. Tresilian Developments Ltd. has as its sole director and officer one Anthony Hubert Gratt Jr., according to the ministry's corporate records. These two mortgages would seem to be at present outstanding, as well as the mortgages to Victoria and Grey Trust Co., first mortgagee, and Seaway Trust, second mortgagee.
It seems clear, therefore, that what has happened in this matter is a normal exercise by a mortgagee, Victoria and Grey Trust, of its rights under a first mortgage which has gone into default. The tenants should, I suggest, obtain legal advice, and if so advised and the rights of the mortgagee have been validly and properly exercised, follow counsel's advice with respect to the payment of rent.
Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I would like a supplementary on that. It will take some time to absorb what the minister has told me, but I understand there is now $10 million worth of mortgages on those buildings as of December 31, 1981. I assume the minister has checked into the evaluations and that his regulators, who were inspecting those companies over a year ago, approved of this kind of financial transaction on those buildings and that there is inherent value there to support those kind of mortgages.
From what he is saying, at least about the Ottawa building, it appears that Kilderkin has defaulted. Is that right? Maysfield, which is owned by Kilderkin, has defaulted. Is that just a default with respect to that building or a general default? How does this affect the rest of the tenants who are in the 20,0000 units that are controlled and run by Maysfield at present? Are there any other buildings in jeopardy? Are there any other buildings with tenants who are confused as to whom they should pay their rent? What is the status of the whole situation? Are those only isolated examples or is this whole thing, like the ministry, in a total state of confusion?
Hon. Mr. Elgie: First, Mr. Speaker, I do not accept the last remark. I suggest there is a ministry responding expeditiously to problems facing it in a very responsible way.
Now, with respect to the particular Ottawa --
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
3 p.m.
Hon. Mr. Elgie: I've got them going. Oh well. it's all right. We have got to get people going in this world. It had to happen to them somehow.
I have reported with respect to the Southvale property. I have no information about any other defaults by Maysfield at this moment. The honourable member knows there was an application by Cadillac Fairview some two weeks ago with respect to their mortgages and an order was obtained; but the mortgage was paid before the order could be completed, so therefore it did not follow that a receiver was placed in relation to those buildings.
I have no other information about any of the buildings at the present time.
IDEA CORP.
Mr. Elston: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the vice-chairman of the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development I would like to go to the chairman of BILD, the Treasurer, with respect to the IDEA Corp., which was created a full two years ago. To this point all we have is the appointment of a chairman and two vice-presidents. I understand that as of January 12, 1983, funds were allocated for the corporation but none of these funds are to be invested until March 1983.
Will the Treasurer advise us what IDEA has done in the past two years besides appointing these three members to the board and why IDEA has been so slow getting off the mark? Perhaps he can tell us what new idea he has for the province.
Hon. F. S. Miller: I have an idea of what you are after.
Mr. Speaker, my colleague is a reasonable man. He comes from a reasonable part of the province. I expect him to be reasonable, then, in his expectations of taking what was, I think, a dramatic concept and putting it into action. We chose very quickly as chairman --
Mr. Elston: There is no action.
Hon. F. S. Miller: Oh, there is. We chose very quickly as chairman a very competent, high-profile person in the person of Ian Macdonald. He is the kind of man who literally could have had his choice of governmental appointments because of his proven track record. He was very anxious to be associated with IDEA and with BILD, and has helped us in the last year to develop the concepts of it very carefully after many meetings.
I believe the member will find that there is a president of the company. I think he mentioned two vice-presidents. There is certainly the appointment of an operating board chosen from very high-quality business people bringing a variety of skills, and there has been an allocation of moneys totalling, I think, about $107 million over five years.
Not all those moneys are being held back until future dates. As a matter of fact they start flowing, as I recall, at once for the administration of the business. They really wanted to speed up the flow of funds beyond the five-year time frame: They wanted them all put into a very short time frame, because they have come to the conclusion that there are about six specific areas where research and venture capital opportunities exist. They have defined those. They are setting up the techniques for developing joint co-operation with industry. They have predicted that by the third or fourth year they will be self-supporting instead of requiring further infusions from the government.
I hope they are right. I will believe it when I see it. The fact is that they are trying to bring together the concept of improving the research co-ordination in this country and the concept of improving venture capital, which I believe is one of our greatest needs in North America. To assume that this can all happen overnight and have immediate results I think the member as a reasonable person would have to admit is not likely.
Mr. Cunningham: Mr. Speaker, I think the Treasurer would have to admit that there was great, if not undue, haste to announce the program on January 27, 1981, only days, if not less than a week, before the election was called. How can he stand in his place in this House today and explain to us that no action, short of hiring Mr. Macdonald and two other people, has taken place in the two years that have passed since the announcement of IDEA? What has that done for the hundreds and thousands of people who are looking for work in this province, people who require assistance and are in great despair and in need of employment? How can he stand here and tell us that?
Hon. F. S. Miller: In the first two years of BILD, because IDEA Corp. had not been structured, the bill was passed in this House. It required the members' approval, by the way. The member had an opportunity to discuss the creation of that corporation.
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Hon. F. S. Miller: We did a lot. The member never wants to admit it. He is the paramount critic of the Urban Transportation Development Corp. He will eat those words one of these days. This week I am going to take his leader for a ride on a hydrogen-fuelled vehicle. I hope, if he will come with me. I want to say to the member --
Interjections.
Hon. F. S. Miller: Let the member for Niagara Falls (Mr. Kerrio) calm down. He is trying to live up to his record as the best interjector in the House.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
AUDIO LIBRARY PROGRAM
Mr. Allen: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Colleges and Universities (Miss Stephenson). It is a subject I thought I had left behind me in the past.
She will remember that the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mrs. Birch) on December 2 assured this House, the province and Trent University audio library that it would continue in service. Since that time, indeed the next day, the provincial secretary's officials began to muddy the water, stating that all the government's commitment amounts to. is to continue the services for visually impaired post- secondary students. There is no notion of the way in which they will be continued.
As recently as yesterday, the provincial secretariat s committee, meeting with the audio library, would give no assurance or commitment of continuance of service because the matter was "under study" and they were exploring "all options." In the meantime, the periodical audio library in this city has gone into virtual collapse, and has lost its staff and director.
Mr. Speaker: Question, please.
Mr. Allen: What I want to ask the minister is, will she reaffirm to this House the plain words of the provincial secretary that "the audio services provided to visually handicapped people by the Trent audio library up to this time will continue"; or may I ask her and the ministries involved, is the periodical audio library's fate, in spite of its pleadings to the ministry over the last six months about its situation of extreme difficulty and tenuousness of operation and the continuing refusal of support, to be the model for the continuance of service that the Trent University audio library will have to expect?
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, the Provincial Secretary for Social Development is indeed a woman of her word and the service which is provided by the Trent University audio library will indeed be continued. The exact mechanism for the ongoing support is not totally devised at this point, but that commitment has been made. As the honourable member knows, there is funding available to that library until, I believe, April 1 and the commitment has been made that the service will continue.
We have been exploring this, not only at Trent University audio library, but in attempting to find a way in which we could ensure that library services for print-handicapped young people and older people who attend a university could be made more accessible.
Mr. Allen: I am pleased with at least the partial reassurance from the minister. I must say, however, that Trent University audio library and Trent University itself have made it plain that the fairly relaxed timetable upon which the committee is functioning really does not meet the requirements of the situation. They already have their staff on layoff notice. Their budget is in the process of wind-down. There are no new orders being accepted from clients. It is quite evident that a timetable that vaguely requires reporting some time in the spring, according to the terms of reference of the committee, is simply not early enough to forestall that process.
Will the minister please urge the committee into high gear? It has met only two out of four agencies in the course of two months and time is running out. Will she move the committee into high gear to get on with the job so that specific assurances can be given in time for that facility to continue without interruption?
Hon. Miss Stephenson: I believe it is the intent of the committee to report within a relatively short period of time. I believe they are in high gear. I believe that they have a very real concern about the task which they have been given and I am aware that they have involved a number of people outside government in the discussions to find the most appropriate vehicle.
3:10 p.m.
Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, would the minister not admit that as a result of the uncertainty her government is creating for the visually impaired, whether it is with that program of her ministry or the lack of commitment of her colleague the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Drea) in providing advocacy service or visual aids to the visually impaired, 14,000 people in this province are not getting the assistance they could get with only a small amount of funds which she could provide? There are 14,000 people in this province who have low vision and she is not giving them any assistance.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, the matter we are addressing at this point is the library service provided for students and staff at universities. I would remind the honourable members that it is more than one and a half years ago that we suggested strongly to the Council of Ontario Universities that it examine its role in this to ensure there was a greater dispersion of the capacity of Trent audio library to a larger number of students in the province. We did not get any kind of positive response from COU. It is unfortunate that did not happen, but the commitment has been made that we will find a way to ensure that this service is carried on and it is our hope it will be improved.
Mr. Allen: Mr. Speaker, I would like to rise on a point of order and to correct the record. If the minister will go back and examine departmental files, she will read correspondence there which indicates quite clearly that when the ministry, having put the question of the print-handicapped, and the handicapped in general, to the universities through COU, a committee was established. It reported back to COU and then it communicated with the ministry asking the ministry what response it had to its own recommendations. Finally, a response was secured from the ministry six months later, simply a reminder that it had no interest in intervening in university affairs.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I believe the honourable member has reported that with a certain degree of bias, which is anticipated. The request which was made of COU did not produce a positive response related to the suggestion which had been made regarding the organization of the program.
RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS
Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of privilege. I believe the privileges of one of the members of this House has been abused by another member. I believe the privileges of the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Pope) have been abused by the Chairman of Management Board (Mr. McCague). You may recall, Mr. Speaker, that both you and I have been abusing the Minister of Natural Resources for not responding to questions which he promised to respond to on December 17.
We now learn that the Minister of Natural Resources is not the culprit but that he forwarded his response to the Chairman of Management Board for approval and that was meant to be forwarded to the Clerk. The Chairman of Management Board has been negligent and abused both my privileges and those of the Minister of Natural Resources.
Mr. Speaker: I am sure the Chairman of Management Board has been listening intently and will act on your request.
USE OF TIME IN QUESTION PERIOD
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, you may --
Hon. Mr. Ashe: A waste of time.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: No, I hope this is not a waste of time. It is to do with the amount of time that has again been taken in terms of the leaders' questions. There were only two back-benchers' questions again today, something I do not think we can afford to have continue.
I would like to applaud two initiatives I saw today on the Speaker's part. One was when he interrupted heckling on this side to say that he saw that we did not want to hear the rest of the question and, therefore, interrupted the flow and moved it on to the next questioner. It also happened that he stopped the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller), and basically said that he thought he had answered the question when he was rambling on and not dealing with the specifics.
I wanted to compliment the Speaker, and to encourage him to be more ruthless with that if he can, because I do believe that the privileges of many back-benchers are being abused because they are not able to get up in the question period even though there is ample time to do so.
Mr. Speaker: I am quite well aware of the problem. I would suggest that those people who are preparing questions for various people, and answers as well, keep them as brief as they possibly can.
REPORT
STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Harris, from the standing committee on resources development reported the following resolution:
That supply in the following amounts and to defray the expenses of the Ministry of Labour be granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983:
Ministry administration program, $12,218,500; industrial relations program, $4,592,000; women's program, $1,262,000; occupational health and safety program, $29,950,300; employment standards program, $5,399,000; manpower commission, $1,770,0000; human rights commission program, $4,588,000; labour relations board program, $4,030,000.
MEMBER FOR ELGIN
Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: I wonder if I might, before the orders of the day, draw the members' attention to something that was missed yesterday and on Friday.
I would like to point out to the members, for the record, the celebration of the 25th anniversary of one of the members of this House.
On Sunday, the member for Elgin (Mr. McNeil) celebrated his 25th year as a member of the Ontario Legislature representing the riding of Elgin.
Mr. McNeil was elected on January 30, 1958, in a by-election. Although I know he is not here I would like to ask the members to join me in paying tribute to him.
[Applause]
ORDERS OF THE DAY
FUEL TAX AMENDMENT ACT
Hon. Mr. Ashe moved second reading of Bill 203, An Act to amend the Fuel Tax Act.
Hon. Mr. Ashe: This bill to amend the Fuel Tax Act, 1981, removes the requirement relative to the implementation of the coloured fuel program that an applicant for relief from the cost of construction or acquisition of tanks for the storage or transportation of fuel must obtain the permission of the minister before committing any funds for that purpose.
Some businesses, in anticipation of the start of the coloured fuel program on September 1, 1982, and needing additional tank facilities in order to comply with the terms of that program, started construction of the necessary facilities, or acquired them, before receiving the required authorization. In all other respects, these businesses qualify for relief from the cost of construction or acquisition of the facilities.
It is not the intention of this government to penalize those who in trying to comply with our program innocently disqualified themselves from financial assistance to which they otherwise would base been entitled. Therefore, I am now moving to remove that particular provision.
As well, I have included in the bill an administrative amendment which will extend the regulation-making authority of the Lieutenant Governor in Council and the minister.
These changes will allow certain ministry officials to act for the minister, prescribe the interjurisdictional carriers required to be registered, identify where labels and seals must be placed on equipment, and prescribe the time and manner for delivering a return required under the act.
3:20 p.m.
Mr. Riddell: Mr. Speaker, I want to tell the minister I am still receiving complaints from farmers who are using coloured fuel. As I receive these complaints, I send them over to the minister, and I have to thank the minister for responding. I trust he has also been responding to the farmers, as he has indicated in his letters to me. Even if he is, that does not seem to be satisfying the farmers, because we are still getting all kinds of reports of fuel pump damage from the coloured diesel fuel.
The red dye in the fuel is being blamed for the damage. Farmers say it tends to jell the fuel, and reports of farmers changing filters each hour are not uncommon. Many farmers tell me they are forever changing the filters in their machinery that uses diesel fuel, and many are replacing injector pumps. In many cases, it costs upwards of $1,000 to repair the damage that has been done by the grime that seems to collect and get into the moving parts of the engine. This wears it out and replacing injector pumps is very costly. The farmers tell me they have had to have the coloured fuel pumped out of their tanks and they have replaced it with clear fuel. They tell me they are now prepared to do the paper work to make an application for a tax refund rather than take any more chances with the coloured fuel.
Now I am even having people who are in the business of servicing furnaces telling me they are getting much less heat from the furnaces because of the diesel fuel. I believe I sent this complaint over to the minister. They tell me the furnaces are not working nearly as efficiently with the coloured fuel. In other words, they have to turn their thermostats higher to get a little bit of heat, whereas when they were using clear furnace oil, they were getting fairly efficient heating. That is another problem that has surfaced just recently with the furnaces using the coloured fuel.
If the farmers are going to curtail the use of coloured fuel and apply for the tax rebate, I wonder if the minister is prepared to reimburse them for the interest on the money they otherwise would have received if they had that money in the bank rather than having to pay the complete cost of the fuel and then receive the rebate. It used to take six months, but the farmers tell me they now get their rebate once a year. That is money they are not collecting interest on. If the minister insists on carrying on with this coloured fuel program, perhaps he should also think of reimbursing farmers the interest they are losing by having to pay for the coloured fuel and getting the tax refund only at the end of the year.
We are also getting letters from machinery companies telling the farmers that if the damage done to the equipment can be traced to the coloured fuel, that piece of equipment will no longer be covered under warranty. I have here several notices from machinery companies which tell farmers they will not consider the piece of equipment to be covered under warranty if it can be shown that the coloured fuel is causing the problem.
The farmers are very unhappy with the coloured fuel program. They do not feel they were the cause of the problem in the first place. When the minister introduced the program, he indicated that government was losing in the neighbourhood of $25 million, but I do not think the farmers are guilty of much of that loss.
I will not deny that farmers may to a certain extent use diesel fuel in their pickup trucks, but I am not convinced that the pickup truck is strictly a pleasure vehicle. Farmers use pickup trucks more for farming purposes than they do for pleasure, yet for some reason they are being blamed for the loss the government has been incurring.
We know it is probably the large distributors or truckers who are the guilty parties. I cannot understand why the government does not put more inspectors on the road to seek out those guilty of using the fuel without paying tax, rather than subjecting farmers and homeowners with oil furnaces to the grief and losses they have suffered since the introduction of the coloured fuel program.
As I have said, why could there not have been more inspectors put on the road? I am sure they could have discovered those guilty of using diesel fuel without paying tax, instead of introducing this coloured fuel program, which has cost the farmers a lot of downtime. It has added to the difficulties they were already facing with high input costs and interest rates, and low prices for their products. Now the ministry comes along with a diesel fuel program which prohibits farmers from getting their crops planted and harvested on time. The farmers are incurring greater expense than usual by having to replace filters almost on a daily basis or by having to repair their injector pumps or to install new ones. The repairs alone can cost up to $1,000 or more.
I ask the minister, once again, whether he will reconsider putting a moratorium on this program until he can come up with a better dye to put in the fuel, so that the farmers will not have to face these problems. Why does he insist on carrying on with this coloured fuel program? I do not think it is necessary for the reasons I have already given. It is causing farmers a great deal of hardship, which they simply cannot stand while they are going through these very difficult economic times.
I just mention this once again and ask whether he will give reconsideration to this program. Yes, Mr. Speaker, we are talking about Bill 203, which has to do with coloured fuel to a certain extent. I simply have to speak on behalf of the farmers, who are not happy with this program. Even the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, at its last meeting, passed a resolution asking that a moratorium be put on this program until the government can come up with a better dye to mix with the fuel which would not cause the problems that are occurring at present. I will be anxious to hear the minister's response.
3:30 p.m.
Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, it was with some reluctance that I recommended to my caucus that we support the bill, and we will. The reluctance is centred on the notion that this is an occasion to be marked, because the government now is admitting that some of the things it tried to do were wrong. In fact, in this particular bill the minister is attempting to put forward a solution to a previously caused screwup. I suppose we should be grateful at least on this one occasion to have this particular minister, who is not given to doing this, admitting that he made a couple of mistakes here and there.
The reluctance centres on the fact that this is not the first time this minister has had problems in administering what has been for the Tories in Ontario a long-standing political tradition. That is the old tradition that if you take a dollar off somebody and give them back a dime, they somehow should feel so grateful they got something back that they will support you once again.
It is difficult to imagine that a minister such as the current Minister of Revenue would have difficulty giving away money, but he does. This is not the first time he has had trouble giving away money. We are all familiar with the problems relating to rebates for senior citizens which were the subject of massive advertising programs. Those problems still persist despite the fact that there are hot lines, advertising programs and computers at work. There are still foulups there.
This particular bill purports to correct an injustice in this one. I am not so terribly sure it will do so, but we have to give the minister the benefit of the doubt and at least give him an opportunity to rectify what he obviously fouled up in the first instance. We seem to have a minister here who is giving a new depth and clearness to the word "inept." None the less, he is doing that and once again he has presented us with an occasion when the Legislature must correct some faults in a program that less than a year or so ago he purported to be a great solution.
I think it is worth putting on the record once again that there are problems with the coloured fuel program. Unlike the minister, I do not believe it is everybody else who is wrong. I believe that in some major perspective one has to admit that the government took on the coloured fuel program because it perceived there to be a problem in getting enough revenue. To rectify that situation, they sought to provide a correction that would cause the ministry the least amount of inconvenience and maximize the amount of money that would come in. The problem with that, of course, is that the inconvenience now is being handled by the consumers.
Although I have heard and read on several occasions that they do not know how to mix the dye properly, that they do not use the right kind of dye and that they use the wrong mix in the wrong weather, there now seems to be, as the previous speaker indicated, sufficient evidence to say that the program has its problems, that not everybody out there can be fouling up and that perhaps the foulness might be central to the kind of program the government is trying to run.
It cannot be that every piece of machinery out there is operating incorrectly. Nor can it be, as some would say, that all the farmers and suppliers out there do not know what they are doing. It seems to me there now is sufficient evidence to indicate that this is a rather awkward way to identify who is using the fuel properly and improperly.
I think we are faced with a program that was flawed initially, even though we might have reluctantly granted the minister one point, which was that there were revenues that should have been coming to the government but they were not getting. It seems to me they picked a flawed program in the first instance, and the bill we have before us this afternoon attempts to correct one of those flaws.
I wish I had more confidence in the minister and in his ability but, unfortunately, I do not. We will support this bill, because not to do so would be to attempt once again, as the minister often does, to punish the victim; and we do not want to do that. It seems to me he has admitted his fault, he has put it in print and put it before the Legislature, and we are prepared to accept his humble apology.
Mr. McGuigan: Mr. Speaker, I also rise to support Bill 203 because, as the honourable member has just said, to do otherwise would be to punish people who went ahead in good faith and put up tanks and various construction items to look after their customers because of the extra requirements that were imposed on them by this program.
This bill illustrates that this program was brought in very hurriedly, without proper consultation with the people who administer the Gasoline Handling Act and without consultation with the users. I would think an act that had such an impact and would become as visible as coloured fuel becomes to the user would have required that some hearings be held or at least that some advertising be done to fully explain the technical matters that were being carried out.
The minister has done that somewhat after the fact in some of the bulletins he has put out. They describe some of the difficulties. In one of the bulletins they describe problems with the injector system. I am talking not about the injector systems of diesel engines but about the injector systems at the refineries that inject this material into the fuel. Even at that point they are having some difficulties.
I just want to read from the bulletin, and again I want to point out that we are talking about events at the refinery:
"The proper mixing of FOM-50 when manufacturing dye mix, combined with the proper placement of the dye-line outlet and the use of a five-micron filter prior to the dye mix being received by the injector, eliminates precipitate in either the injector or in the fuel being coloured. The proper mixing and filtration of dye mix prior to interjection in the fuel through manual dyeing also eliminates any precipitate in the coloured fuel."
This points out that when proper procedures are not followed, there are difficulties at the refinery. It follows that, if proper procedures are not followed, there are difficulties for the user. This is particularly true in the case of fuel that was manually treated, fuel that was in transit between the refineries and the users during the introduction period.
Another thing that is pointed out in these bulletins is that some of the people who manually treated the fuel, who manually put the dye into the fuel, used summer-grade diesel fuel. As all members know, we change the particular qualities of both diesel and gasoline to prevent them from being affected by cold weather. I think diesel fuel tends to solidify or wax up or turn into a gel in cool conditions. If you look at the calendar, you will see that a lot of this fuel hit the farmer during the fall months, when he was running into cool conditions. Summer-grade fuel was used in some instances as a carrier to mix the dye and then added to the fuel.
What we are really seeing here is that a number of mistakes have been made, and I think it is incumbent upon the minister perhaps to confess, as it is good for the soul; but it would also be good for the program. We in this party really are not opposed to the objectives of the program. We realize this is perhaps, if not the best way to solve it, at least an attempt to solve it. If the minister had explained to people the shortcomings that were evident during the introduction of this program, perhaps it would have been accepted and it would have become the norm.
Farmers seem to have had a lot of trouble with filters during the fall. I have had calls, not hundreds but several, from people complaining that their fuel filters plug up. They state that the life of the fuel filter is not as great as they would normally expect.
There is a great deal of suspicion and uncertainty out there among the users. I would hope that before spring, when we again come into the season of heavy use, the minister would really come clean and lay it on the line to let people know what has happened.
3:40 p.m.
While we approve of the retroactivity of payment for changes that were made in tankage and for construction, I have heard from one of the distributors in my area -- and I know other members have heard it from other distributors --that the cost allowance, which I believe is $4,000 per tank wagon, is not nearly enough to convert the tanks to their new use. Under the old system, most distributors had a tank wagon with four compartments. Now they believe they require five compartments owing to the regulations of the Gasoline Handling Act.
I have read two quotations into the record, on a previous occasion, stating that to convert a tank wagon to five compartments would cost approximately $20,000 as against the $4,000 that is allowed. I noted that shortcoming, and I am sorry the minister did not include provision for it in his bill. However, I believe it could be changed by regulation, and I would urge the minister to do that.
We support this bill, but reluctantly.
Mr. G. I. Miller: Mr. Speaker, it gives me some pleasure to bring to the minister's attention the problems affecting many farmers in my area connected with the use of coloured fuel. It was not brought to our attention until after the procedure was brought into effect that it was causing the farming industry so much trouble.
As an example, one farmer uses a tomato picker and employs 12 people in the operation. After using the coloured fuel, he had a great deal of trouble with the filters on his equipment which caused downtime. It has cost this small businessperson a considerable amount of money.
As my colleagues have pointed out, it is not only the farmer who is affected. It is also costing the distributor money, which has to be passed on to somebody and that somebody is the end user of the product. This is another indication that the government is increasing the costs of the small businessman instead of assisting him.
The minister is collecting $25 million more in revenue, but it is also costing more to implement this program. He has had to hire more people, which I believe cost around $1 million; if I am wrong, the minister can give us the correct information when he responds. If that money had been put into place under the old system, it would not have created so much chaos and so many problems for the farmers.
During the combine operations last fall, the most severe problems involving filters caused by using the coloured fuel apparently were experienced by Allis-Chalmers Canada Inc. That was brought to my attention, and I would like to bring it to the minister's attention.
I wonder, would the minister indicate in this Legislature whether farmers could use uncoloured fuel and then apply for a tax rebate; that is, to follow the same policy as they do with gas? If so, rather than applying once a year, could they do so on a monthly basis so as not to tie up their money too long? The minister will realize that interest rates are a consideration. When one has to borrow to obtain supplies, interest rates are an added expense for any business. We need all the help we can get in the farming industry and in small businesses to keep them alive today.
Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all the honourable members for their participation in this debate on Bill 203, and I would like to touch on a few of the issues they raised.
First, I do not acknowledge that this bill is rectifying a mistake per se. The original bill was written very deliberately to indicate to members of the general public that they should come forth with a proposal, we would approve of it, and then they would go ahead with it. That is exactly what we are doing.
What did happen was that some people, through not knowing what was in the bill, went ahead in good faith to prepare for the start of the program on September 1. They made commitments or expenditures and only found out afterwards that they should have had approval of their program first. The program they went ahead with met all the criteria, and they would have qualified if they had come for permission first. In my view, that is not a reason why they should not receive compensation. That is the reason for this bill.
If we were doing it all over again, the bill would be written in exactly the same way. It is only reasonable and prudent to suggest to people that when they are making expenditures that will involve some public funds, they should have some approval in advance to indicate that what they are doing is fair, reasonable and responsible, not only to themselves but also to the taxpayers who will be involved in that program in terms of rebates. It is not a rectification in that sense.
As for the various problems, there have been some: I do not think there is any doubt about that. The member for Kent-Elgin (Mr. McGuigan) particularly touched upon the main reason for some problems we have checked out; that was in the downstream handling, the hand-dyeing that took place, when people did not follow the instructions.
I guess they thought it was not important to have some kind of accuracy in how they would hand-dye the fuel, and they were a little overgenerous with the quantity of dye and/or they did not mix it properly after adding the dye. This has caused some problems, mostly in the way of inconvenience, it would appear, but none the less some problems.
As we moved along and the injection systems were put into operation so that it is done at the refinery level and some of the earlier startup problems were overcome, it is safe to say the number of concerns and complaints dropped off considerably.
In regard to heating deficiencies and inefficiencies, frankly, I am not aware of any as yet. We have had one or two complaints about space heaters, and they have been investigated. They did not have to do with loss of heating efficiency. It was more a case of a filter being clogged.
I have had our people investigating all complaints that have come to us either from honourable members or from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. I have had a good dialogue going with the president of the federation. We have been following up on them all. It is the obligation of the inspector to report to me in detail about all the complaints. I have those that have been followed up and reported on to about mid-January. There are 109 in total.
In most instances it is safe to say, and this is generally being backed up by the marketplace, that the main problems are not really related to the coloured fuel. I acknowledged before that there were some. I am not saying there were none, but the majority of the problems, when one got right down to it, had nothing to do with the coloured fuel.
3:50 p.m.
The main difference was one of perception. If one ends up looking into a clogged filter or if one changes a filter and looks at it, now it is red; before it looked gray, brown or muddy because of the sediment that had accumulated and collected. That is its purpose. That is exactly what the dye is supposed to do. It said there were red items in the host fuel and it indicated it accordingly because, naturally, the sediment turned red.
In terms of the business from some supply companies that was referred to by the member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell) where they would not honour a warranty if it could be shown that there was a problem caused by coloured fuel, I have not been made aware specifically of any such instances.
There is no doubt at all that it is still a pretty safe statement for anybody to put out. It has been my understanding that no reputable manufacturer has even suggested that, because they know very well it would just be a particular crutch they were trying to hang their hat on in case something went wrong with their equipment. We would be quite prepared to back up anybody who was getting the excuse from a supplier or a manufacturer that it was trying to negate a warranty on the basis of suggesting a problem was caused by coloured fuel.
As to why we went into the program, I am not denying that one of the principal reasons was to close the loopholes that were there. There were revenues that were not being paid into the Treasury in an estimated amount of some $25 million. There is no doubt it is an estimate; it could be more and it could be less. The other principal consideration for going this route, because others were examined, was to follow with the government's plans for deregulation, and the Fuel Tax Act does exactly that.
If we had gone some other suggested routes, the regulations and paperwork that were in effect before would have been multiplied many times. The Fuel Tax Act eliminates many thousands of people from having to worry about reporting, forms, claiming refunds and so on.
I have said this many times before, but I think it bears repeating. It is exceedingly important to put on the record that Ontario is not the leader in this program at all. As a matter of fact, we are one of the last jurisdictions in Canada to go to a coloured fuel program. The adjacent province to the east of us, Quebec, has had the program in existence for more than three years using exactly the same dye, put forth by exactly the same manufacturer, and used in exactly the same numbers, 20 parts per million. It had a few startup problems as we have had but, since the program has been in place, I understand it has had virtually no problems with it and it is serving a very useful purpose.
As to those farmers or others who choose to go the route of buying clear fuel and claiming a refund, we will allow them to do that. That is an option and a choice they make. We have come up with a program that will not necessitate them to do that but, if they feel more comfortable with it, so be it; they make that choice. But it would be unfair to suggest that they should receive interest on their moneys because they made a choice to go that route rather than the program that eliminated their having to finance those costs.
As for the time element involved in rebates, it is a matter of anything that is reasonable depending on the volume of the rebate. In other words, for anybody who is using a substantial amount of fuel, and hence claiming a substantial rebate at a time, we will handle it on a regular basis.
The idea of not putting in a claim too often is particularly geared to those who would fill in claim forms for a relatively few dollars; and I mean that in a sincere sense, just double-digit dollars rather than triple-digit dollars. In fact, it is hardly worth anybody's effort, theirs or ours, to be handling a multitude of these small claims. We encourage them to accumulate the claims for some reasonable period of time, but we will process them very judiciously when they do come to us.
In terms of the cost of the program and the actual rebate per se, there are indeed costs. There is the capital cost of the tankage etc., which is a front-end or once-only cost that will be fully expended in the first couple of years of the program. Then there is an ongoing cost, which will approximate up to $1 million a year in total, but I suggest that $1 million producing something like $25 million is a pretty reasonable rate of return for the investments that are being made.
As for the actual costs of tankage, changes to tank trucks and so on, all our figures and proposals were examined by outside consultants, people who are experts in the field -- we do not profess to be experts at all -- and were approved by them.
The program we are funding is felt to meet all the regulations of the Gasoline Handling Act and other legislation and should suit the needs of virtually all situations. There is no doubt that there will be the odd situation in possibly somewhat remote territory where there may be a little inconvenience in terms of their delivery schedule. I acknowledge that and accept that we just cannot take care of every situation, but I think we have taken care of most of them.
The member for Kent-Elgin (Mr. McGuigan) talked about one problem that has been evident in some parts of the province, and that is the one relating to using summer-grade diesel. When we investigated this, we found that was exactly what happened: it was a result of using the wrong fuel, not the wrong dye. The dye material and the dye mixture were correct, but the dye was improperly added to a summer fuel in the late fall and early winter. Whether or not the dye was present did not make any difference to the problem caused by the delivery and ultimate usage of that fuel; it would have happened anyway. But it was not caused by the dye. We have had several of those situations, and in a few instances the consumer has changed suppliers.
Mr. McGuigan: It was the use of the dye that precipitated the use of the summer-grade fuel.
Hon. Mr. Ashe: No, it did not. It was a matter of the supplier using the wrong host fuel, but that was a choice he made.
Briefly, I want to give some idea of half a dozen or so of the particular concerns that have been passed on by the member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell). I think it is interesting to note a few of them; there are 109 in here, but I will try to pick out very specific ones.
One received December 16 from the honour- able member said an inspector called who happened to be a Mrs. Thomas of the Simcoe South Liberal Association. Some farmers had complained of filter clogging. They really had not had any themselves and there was satisfaction expressed for our interest. She in turn passed this on to another concerned person in Utopia, Ontario. Our inspector called, and Mr. Hammond stated that he had not experienced any problems but had read of them.
I can cite chapter and verse of many situations of this kind where there was only a perceived problem and not an actual one. Another one from the same member said the inspector called, and Mr. Broadfoot stated that he did not have any complaints regarding problems with his equipment but he had heard rumours of other farmers who had problems.
In another case our inspector called and found that the fuel tank had not been cleaned out in many years; in fact, the problem was the dirt in the tank. Again it had nothing to do with the fuel. That happened to be a Mr. Finkbeiner.
Another one: Vincent Farm Equipment was called on after checking with Mr. Hunkin, and Mr. McClure of that company stated there were numerous reasons for the Hunkin tractor problems. He stated that they do a large volume of tractor work and have had no coloured-fuel-related repairs.
4 p.m.
I can go on and on with this. Another one is Mr. Webb. He has had no problems to date. He switched to clear fuel because of problems experienced by others. Some have done this, and that is fine. It is a matter of personal choice. If they want to go back to the method of claiming rebates and so on, we can accommodate them. I want to make it very clear, however, that many of these so-called concerns were not really concerns when we got to them. People had heard about them or had been told that somebody else may have had a problem.
In another case somebody ended up switching fuel suppliers, after examination, from Gulf to Petro-Canada. That was also from the member for Huron-Middlesex. Last but not least of his examples was the fuel pump situation of Mr. Shillinglaw. As of January 6, the fuel pump was still on the combine even though the problem was apparently in the third week of December when the pump was taken off to be sent in for service. We are still following up on that. I just wanted to let the member know we followed up on those people. In this case, I presume it was because the combine was laid up for the winter, and he had just not got around to taking it off yet. We followed that up with him and will continue to do so.
There are many similar situations. I want to thank the members for their support of this legislation. I think the concerns are being overcome, and it is more a matter of becoming accustomed to the fact that the host fuel is now a different colour than it was before. In fact, the colour itself has not been, in most instances, the cause of any problems that we have been able to ascertain out in the field.
Motion agreed to.
MUNICIPAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST ACT
Hon. Mr. Bennett moved second reading of Bill 14, An Act to revise the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act.
Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to revise the existing act in order to make it more understandable to the layman, to make it easier for municipal councillors and the members of elected local boards to do their jobs and to levy more severe penalties in cases where a contravention has resulted in personal financial gain. The revised act retains the same basic purposes and procedures of the existing act, and provides a code of conduct governing the entire field relating to conflicts of interest as they may arise in relation to members of municipal council and local hoards in the province.
Bill 14 has been drafted in the light of considerable experience with the current Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, and follows a major critique and proposal for reform by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. The bill has been drafted after consultation with AMO and the Ontario School Trustees' Council. Copies of the bill have been sent to every municipal electric utility, school board and municipal council in the province.
The failure of a member of a council or of a local board to disclose a pecuniary interest in any matter under consideration at a meeting of a council or a local board will render the member liable to having his seat declared vacant, being disqualified from being a member of any council or local board for a period of up to seven years, and having to make restitution. A major reworking of several sections has been done to correct drafting problems, to improve clarity of expression and make the order of presentation more understandable.
The major changes from the current act are the addition of a new exception by reason of a member having a pecuniary interest in common with the electors in general; an expansion of this disclosure provision to require a member to declare the nature of his pecuniary interest; and a new penalty provision that would allow a judge to order a member to make restitution in cases where the contravention has resulted in personal financial gain.
As we proceed through, I understand the members of the opposition would like this bill to go to committee and we are prepared to recommend, after today's second reading, that it go to the standing committee on general government. I believe at that time we will have two or three amendments to make relating strictly to some wording and to some dates that were put in the bill when it was originally introduced.
Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the minister's agreement to send this to committee because I know a number of people have asked to have it go to committee, if only for a short period. I am not sure there will be many representations, but there will be a few, I am sure.
I also want to commend the minister for being here today. Pieces of legislation often come before this House that affect his ministry and we have not seen him here for legislation for some months now.
Hon. Mr. Bennett: Where were you last Tuesday?
Mr. Epp: With that exception.
Hon. Mr. Bennett: I explained the reasons for my absence. They are in Hansard.
Mr. Epp: I want to commend the minister for being here. I have made points in this Legislature when he has been absent, and I think I should obviously make a point when he is present.
I welcome this legislation. The municipal councillors of this province welcome the legislation. The trustees of school boards welcome the legislation. Board members, commission members and so forth welcome this legislation. It is a piece of legislation that the ministry has brought forward together with the municipalities, with a lot of prodding by the municipalities. Of course the ministry has seen itself that there are certain deficiencies in the present legislation.
As a result of this, we have a much improved conflict of interest bill before us which will clarify many of the areas of concern that politicians have expressed over a number of years. There is no doubt we needed the legislation. There was a considerable amount of pressure last fall. We wanted to bring it forward, particularly since the present Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. Wells), who had the responsibility for municipal affairs, had promised it a few years back and the present minister also had promised it. We finally have it before us.
As an interesting sidelight, a number of people in December were blaming the opposition parties for the delay of the legislation. That was somewhat surprising to me; why would anyone on this side of the House be criticized for holding up the legislation when we do not order the business of the House? Our answer at that time, as always, was that the government can bring forth its legislation whenever it wants to.
Hon. Mr. Bennett: I am glad the member is smiling.
Mr. Epp: The minister is smiling, but he knows he can bring it in at any time. As the Speaker knows and can substantiate, the government orders the business of the House as it sees fit.
For their own reasons, they chose not to bring it forward. Nevertheless, if at any time they want to abdicate that particular responsibility, we will be glad to take up the gauntlet and do our bit, but they should not blame the opposition for holding up second reading of this bill or any other bill because they can bring them forward any time they want.
Mr. Ruston: Bring them in any Wednesday.
Mr. Epp: That is right. When I pointed this out to some of the municipal representatives they had to agree with me. Nevertheless, they still came around to see us, and of course we were glad to see them because they always have a substantial contribution to make.
Looking at this piece of legislation in a historical perspective, we have to go back to 1973 when the present act was proposed and was adopted on third reading on January 17, 1973, I am told, when it also got royal assent. It was printed in the Ontario Gazette exactly one month later on February 17, 1973.
Prior to that, conflict of interest for municipal politicians, county school board trustees, commission and committee chairmen and so forth, was treated in the Municipal Act. It was dealt with in kind of a three-pronged way. There was a section dealing with the prohibition against holding certain offices; there was a prohibition against contractual relationships, direct or indirect, between the municipality and members of council, and there was a requirement for the disclosure of any pecuniary interest in contracts discussed at a meeting of a council or of a local board.
4:10 p.m.
In its wisdom, the Legislature in 1973 brought in new legislation that I think was an important improvement over what had gone on before that. Nevertheless, after 10 years of having the present act in force, it has been found wanting in many areas. The new legislation is a real improvement.
I just want to quote a statement made in Municipal World by Mr. Michael Smither, the co-chairman of a group of primarily municipal politicians who prepared the Report on Municipal Conflict of Interest, Association of Municipalities of Ontario, 1979. It is a very substantial report, and I commend them for doing this work. When we read through it we find that they have really done their homework, and it must have been of substantial assistance to the ministry when it drafted the legislation.
Mr. Smither said: "Unequivocally, the intricacies of the subject should be lucidly expressed in statute form with particular attention to detail and simplicity. However, the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, 1972, is incomplete and ambiguous and in numerous instances has been misunderstood and disregarded. What should be easy-to-comprehend procedures have become a trap for the unwary and a subject of magnitude in the minds of the members, the public and the press." When we look at the present act we find exactly that.
Mr. Smither goes on to say that the departure from the previous legislation "rejected the former attitude that politicians are corrupt and adopted the more realistic assumption that politicians are at least as honest as the persons who elected them." This was as a result of the new legislation that was brought in some years ago.
He goes on to say with respect to equal rights for members: "The new statute no longer provides for disqualification for contractual relations with the municipality or local board. It thereby permits councillors generally to enjoy the same rights as any other citizens to do business with the municipality or local board of which they are a member, provided that the transactions are open to public scrutiny and the member has abstained from participation or decision-making when such matters are under consideration."
When we look at the proposed legislation, the member, be he a member of a council, a board or whatever, has to indicate clearly his or her particular conflict of interest. In the present act that is not the case. Members just declare a conflict of interest but do not indicate what that conflict is. In the proposed legislation they are going to have to indicate the exact conflict.
I want to look at some of the conflicts of interest that have come to our attention in the last few years, and I am sure these are but a handful of the many that have gained the local attention of the populace and the media.
I have one in Cambridge four or five years ago where an alderman was shown to have a conflict when he moved a motion to have George Street extended, which would have taken traffic off Blair Road, the street on which he lived. The judge in that case, Judge Costello, found that this person did have a conflict of interest and he was removed from council.
I am not sure whether there is a direct relation between his having been removed from council and his not being re-elected to council in the next election, which was about two months away. He was removed from council because he was shown to have a conflict of interest. As a result, he was not re-elected to council. I am not sure whether the electorate endorsed that particular finding of conflict of interest and in a sense endorsed his removal from council or not. Anyway he was not re-elected.
Then there was another conflict in the same municipality. This was in March of 1982, where an alderman who had a sign company represented a client before the planning committee, of which he was not a member. At that time he indicated he was appearing before the committee as a private citizen. The judge later found that he made a bona fide error in judgement and did not remove him from council.
It is also interesting to note that the person who pressed the charge against him was a former alderman in that municipality. I am not sure whether this alderman defeated the former one or not, or what happened there, but the judge felt that this person did not have a conflict of interest to the extent that he should be removed from council. He said he had made a bona fide error in judgement, and as a result he remained on council. The judge also said that the person who had made the bona fide error in judgement should pay the legal fees of the complainant in this case.
The case is interesting because a citizen of the municipality pressed the charge. The article points out that there are many instances in Ontario -- and I have seen it myself -- where aldermen, particularly those who are lawyers, appear before council in another instance, represent a client and they are never charged with having a conflict of interest. That is not to say that they would not be found guilty, it is just to say that nobody really presses the point at that time.
In another case, in Windsor, we find a conflict of interest where a member of the school board tried to balance working for one school board while serving as an elected member of another school board. In this case, he was a vice-principal with the public board and chairman of the separate board. When he cast the deciding vote that approved a teachers' pay raise, a ratepayer took him to court on the charge of conflict of interest. The judge agreed saying that this alderman did indeed have an indirect interest in the teachers' contract. This person appealed the case and the decision was upheld.
This is another case involving teachers. I am surprised how many teachers across the province -- and I am not suggesting there are hundreds of them, but there might be one or two dozen -- are members of school boards and also members of council and have to make a decision on the expenditure of money. In this case that was found to be a conflict.
There is still another case where the mayor of Oshawa was involved in discussions of the plans for Marion Place in Oshawa, a proposed senior citizens' residence planned by the congregation of St. Mary of the People Church. When this matter came before council, he said he was a member of the church and wondered whether he had a conflict of interest.
The article goes on to say, "Isn't there something wrong with conflict of interest regulations when they are so obscure that an elected representative must consult a lawyer about whether or not a conflict exists?" In this case his lawyer suggested he did not have a conflict, but this person felt that at least it was necessary for him to find out whether he did have a conflict of interest. I do not think anything more --
Mr. Breaugh: Excuse me, Mr. Speaker. I do not mean to interrupt the honourable member, but I think we ought to correct the record on what the member is quoting. It was not the mayor of Oshawa. It was a member of council for the city of Oshawa, but not the mayor.
4:20 p.m.
Mr. Epp: If he was not the mayor at that time, he was the mayor a little later.
Mr. Breaugh: Just to correct the record, the member is raising the case of Alderman Michael Lisko in the Marion Place case, where he was challenged about a conflict of interest, but it is not Mayor Allan Pilkey.
Mr. Epp: I will read the article. Maybe I read it too quickly. It points out, "Mayor Jim Potticary pointed out again this week how silly our laws are, or lack of laws, and conflicts of interest are." It abbreviates there. As mayor of this city, he was involved in discussions on the plans for Marion Place, a proposed senior citizens' residence planned by the congregation of St. Mary of the People Church.
"The mayor, a member of the congregation, found that he might be in a delicate position and could be involved in a conflict of interest, considering some of the decisions that had been rendered. He has since consulted his lawyer and has been advised he has no conflict and can therefore take part in any discussions on Marion Place. But isn't there something wrong with conflict of interest regulations when they are so obscure that an elected representative must consult a lawyer about whether or not a conflict exists?"
That is in this article in the Oshawa Times. If I am wrong, I can only say the Oshawa Times is wrong and I apologize for the Oshawa Times being wrong.
Mr. Breaugh: The Oshawa Times is usually wrong. I should point out that Jim Potticary is a prominent Liberal who was defeated by Allan Pilkey, a prominent New Democrat. Allan Pilkey is now the mayor of Oshawa. Jim Potticary is now back on the council of the city of Oshawa.
Mr. Epp: If he wants to point that out, I can point out that Morley Rosenberg was a prominent New Democrat and then supported the Conservatives.
Mr. Breaugh: He never was that powerful.
Mr. Speaker: I think we should be referring to the bill.
Mr. Epp: Some people would suggest that when his brother Lenny comes before him and wants to make some change, he will have a conflict of interest. So there we go. There is also a third brother. If he wants to speak about Oshawa, we can speak about Kitchener.
Nevertheless, I can only say, in referring to the mayor, that is what this article indicated. If the article is wrong, then I am wrong. But the article should be right since a member of the press wrote it.
There are a number of other instances where we have had interesting situations. In Hamilton, back in 1980, there was a member of the council who in May 1978 was a member of a five-man board of control which approved a $610,000 contract for Saltfleet Construction of Stoney Creek for the foundations of the library market complex.
Saltfleet then bought concrete for the project from Day and Campbell, a company of which this alderman is a co-owner. The tender was approved in May but there was no bona fide deal with Day and Campbell until a couple of days before June 1, when the shipment of concrete was actually made to the site.
What happened was he was a member of a board which approved the contract, but his firm did not get something until much later. It was not part of it. He wondered whether he had a bona fide conflict of interest.
Then there is the case of Hazel McCallion, which is well noted, who was ruled to have the costs assessed against her by Judge West in this case because West had ruled McCallion committed technical breaches of the act by participating in a November 2, 1981, council meeting dealing with land development in seven planning districts. In this case, Mayor McCallion and her husband own a house in one of those districts. That particular case was appealed and upheld.
What we have here is a number of instances -- I have more here, but I will not deal with all of them -- where people were found to have a conflict of interest. What the present law does is clearly lay out what people should do if they have a conflict of interest.
In my own case, in almost 10 years on council I declared a conflict of interest in one case. That was towards the end of my last term. The reason I declared a conflict of interest was because my property backs on to park land. Farther up the park land there was a development of about 25 acres. They were going to build about 100 houses, four or five houses per acre. There were some wells there. Some environmentalists indicated that if the development were to go ahead the wells might be interfered with and dry up. Those wells in turn were supplying water to a lake which was in the green belt. As I indicated, my property backs on to that green belt.
I declared a conflict of interest because if that lake in fact dried up, it would affect the green belt from a visual aspect. In that case it might in some way affect the value of my property. I was lectured by one lawyer from Cambridge who represented one of the developers and told me I did not have a conflict of interest, but I felt that in fact I did. To this day I still feel I did the right thing by declaring a conflict because someone in that case could have taken me to court.
One of the interesting things we have in the new legislation is that in dealing with some of the areas and clarifying some of the points, the definition of relatives has been clarified. It encompasses only the spouse, the children and the parents.
As I indicated earlier, the person has to declare a conflict of interest and describe what it is. Another aspect is that municipalities may take out insurance for members who are seen to have conflicts of interest. Of course that insurance cannot be drawn on if the person is found guilty. Obviously there is no way that somebody should be found guilty and then have somebody else pay his legal fees; he should have declared that earlier.
Another interesting thing here is that the quorum stipulations are changed so that as few as two people can vote on a particular matter. If everybody else has a conflict of interest and fewer than two people are available to vote on a matter, they then have to take it to a judge and get his approval to proceed.
Two other aspects in here are, first, the exemptions and interest in common with electors generally, which should help eliminate some of the frivolous conflicts of interest that have been charged over a number of years, and second, the section that covers remote and insignificant conflict.
As I have indicated, the act is a good one. The municipal leaders and school board trustees and so forth are particularly pleased with most of the conditions in it. Only time will tell; it depends on how the courts rule on people who accuse others of having a conflict of interest and whose cases go before the courts. But on balance, it is an improvement over what we have and I think the municipal politicians out there will be pleased with its application.
4:30 p.m.
Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, we are pleased to support this bill on second reading. We are a little perplexed as to why it actually took so long to have the bill finally reach the Legislature for second reading debate.
Many of us who are interested in municipal politics have been aware for some time that there continue to be a number of vexing situations around conflicts of interest that do not seem to resolve themselves nicely in court. Many of us are also aware that the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, through their various committees and executive, have been grappling with the various parts of this problem for some time now. In fact, about two years ago they arrived at the conclusion that is now before us in this bill, or something very close to it.
So it has been sitting on the back burner for quite a period of time. In my own caucus, for example, I have been prepared and anxious to get at this legislation for almost a year now, having recommended to my caucus that we support this bill, and we have not been able to do so. Maybe the minister took a look around the gallery this afternoon and decided that the full galleries here -- two people being in attendance whom I can see from my vantage point -- perhaps reflect the interest of the population at large in the matter.
But among those people who are serving on municipal councils and school boards there certainly is a keen interest in attempting to clarify this whole concept of conflict of interest, and for many of us the proposal that is now in front of us in legislative form is a good, sensible compromise piece of legislation. There has been a request from this side, particularly from me, to have at least a small number of public hearings. It is not that we want to go back to square one through all of the work that has been done by AMO, for example, on this matter, but there still are a number of questions to be answered. We think this can best be done by having an opportunity for the various groups that will be directly affected by this legislation to come before a committee of the Legislature to present once again, perhaps in some cases for the seventh or eighth time, their positions on the bill. I also think there needs to be a bit of redefining or clarification of some of the definitions that are in here.
We are aware that it has continued to be a perplexing problem in a number of municipalities. I think it is also not unfair to say that the current situation has lent itself to a little bit of abuse. We are aware that now in many communities, for example, someone will challenge a member of council as having a conflict of interest. Of course, this is hot news and it provides certain people with a bit of press coverage for a short time; then the conflict charge is subsequently withdrawn at the time when you would actually have to get serious, get a lawyer, go to court and go through all of that. So it points out that there is a bit of fuzziness in the current situation that needs to be clarified, and by and large I think this bill in principle attempts to do that.
I want to run through some things fairly quickly to put on the record where some of my concerns lie. Many of us who read the proposals were entranced with the definition of "spouse," which in our society not very long ago we would have thought a fairly simple, straightforward exercise and which now, reflecting modern mores in society, has become somewhat more complex.
A definition of "spouse" is proposed in this bill. I will not read it in full, but it is a little confusing to me. From a couple of points of view it points out the difficulty with this conflict of interest legislation: First, to try to define as clearly as you can what you mean by a conflict and, second, to try to understand that society is not quite what it was a few years ago, so there is a need to get into this detail. I have had representation made to me, for example, that this particular definition is at the same time too tight and too loose, so there is a need to go back to it one more time.
One of the definitions in here I really find confusing. It says: "'spouse' means either of a man and woman who(iii) have gone through a form of marriage with each other, in good faith, that is void and are cohabiting or have cohabited within the preceding year, or" I do not know what that means. I think it is somewhere between a shack-up and a visit to a justice of the peace. I do not know what it means, so I think we will have to go back through that one.
A couple of other problems have been brought to mind in going through this. A number of people have asked me about their status. For example, one of the most common ones concerns teachers -- for some reason, everybody pays a lot of attention to them these days -- whether teachers who work for a board can be trustees on that board. The obvious answer to that is no. But can they be trustees in an adjacent municipality or on another board within the same municipality? Currently, they can.
The definitions of a spouse and conflict of interest do not make it clear exactly how that is going to work out. I have heard representations that teachers should not be sitting on a board of education anywhere in Ontario and all sorts of variations on that. We will have to go back through that one again. The Association of Large School Boards in Ontario has put forward a brief on definitions contained within this act. My colleague the member for Oakwood (Mr. Grande) will go into that in a little more detail than I would care to. But there are, in short, still some problems to be resolved around the definitions.
Another problem has been brought to the fore recently in the case where people in the trade union movement, for example, are a little more active in municipal politics than they once were. Because a number of them belong to a trade union, it is suggested they would be very severely hampered if they sat on a council that had any organized people on its staff at all. It is a little difficult in Ontario these days, at least in the major municipalities, to find one where there is no unionized staff. It has been at least questioned whether somebody who belongs to a union could, for example, deal with a Canadian Union of Public Employees contract. They are being challenged and a little bit harassed around the edges. Yet someone who belongs to a Rotary Club or a Lions Club is exempted under the act.
We have to go through this and clarify the government's intentions there. From my own point of view, it seems fairly clear that there may well be more conflict of interest for a business person in belonging to a social club than there would for someone who happens to be a member of a trade union and sits on a council dealing with trade union contracts. That is really a matter that could be clarified as we go through.
There does not seem to be a great deal to handle what I consider to be a major problem about what I think is a very serious concept. As members may recall, in the fall session and previously, we dealt with amendments to the Municipal Act which provided, under certain circumstances, and given that the municipality followed up with a bylaw, for certain kinds of disclosure for candidates. It was brought to my attention that if there were disclosure provisions in some municipalities, they might well prove to be grounds for someone to claim conflict at a subsequent date. If someone gave money to a candidate and the candidate then supported someone for a re-zoning site or an application to do business with a municipality, there are those who would consider that to be a very direct conflict of interest. Yet, if the municipality did not have a disclosure bylaw, there would be a different set of rules in operation.
We have to try to go back to that when this bill goes out to committee, to clarify what we mean. It will be difficult but, in my view, it is ridiculous to have different sets of laws about disclosure and about election expenses in different parts of Ontario. We went through that debate when that particular amendment to the Municipal Act was put forward. It points out, at least to me, a very serious loophole in this proposal that we have not defined. For example, if every municipality in Ontario had a disclosure provision and all the people on that council had to say, "These are the people who donated to my campaign and this is how much," we might at least clarify it or have a common set of rules. But because there is no common bylaw in operation across Ontario, we have different rules going on and different kinds of conflicts emerging in different municipalities.
So there still remain some difficulties in the bill. Even though I accept that there is consensus about the principles that are contained in this legislation, there are still a few problems with the mechanics of it all. The basis is there for, not a lengthy set of hearings -- because certainly this concept has been discussed, has been studied, all kinds of resolutions passed and it has gone through the mill, so to speak -- but there remain a few areas where I have some concerns, where I am aware that some of the groups and certainly some individuals who will be affected by the legislation would appreciate an opportunity to come before a committee of the Legislature and state their case again.
We will attempt as we go through that to see if we can, if not put amendments to the bill, which is not my favourite way of proceeding, at the very least get some clarification on the part of the government to see if it can deal with some of these and other problems that are before us.
4:40 p.m.
In conclusion, we do support the legislation before us this afternoon. We think the problem is serious and is getting worse instead of better. This bill in principle attempts to deal, and will deal, with that, but there remain some areas where the legislative proposals that are in front of us this afternoon will not solve all the problems.
I suppose the minister quite rightly will point out that it is pretty difficult to write legislation that resolves all the problems. I suppose also that we will be satisfied to put the bill through a committee hearing stage to see whether we can get some clarification to solve at least all the problems we can think of and to get as much clarification as we can.
Conflict of interest remains a rather thorny issue at the municipal level for both the school boards and municipal councils. It is a recurring problem that just does not seem to go away. The bill, in principle, attempts to deal with those problems. The mechanics behind the bill, of having the Association of Municipalities of Ontario review the process and get as wide a consensus as it can, is an approach we would defend. We think we have in front of us something the Legislature can work with and that will succeed in resolving at least some of those problems.
Mr. Grande: Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. As the member for Oshawa has mentioned I would like to find out from the minister whether, once the bill goes to committee, he will be willing to bring forth some of those amendments he talked about in his opening remarks. I wonder whether any of those amendments have to do with the letter the Association of Large School Boards in Ontario sent to the minister. This goes back some time, when the bill has gone through the different types of transformation and different types of numbers that it has.
I would like to refresh the minister's mind in terms of the letter, if it is not available. What the association of Large School Boards in Ontario suggests is that the definition of a spouse in the legislation should be broadened somewhat. They ask why the definition the Family Law Reform Act of 1980 places on the statutes of Ontario is different? Why are those definitions from that particular piece of legislation not being transposed and do not apply to the conflict of interest legislation we have before us?
I think they do make a good point. In other words, we have over the years developed some definition of spouse in law and, therefore, to be consistent with the Family Law Reform Act, I would think some of those changes the Association of Large School Boards in Ontario talks about makes some sense. I am sure the minister, if he does not have the letter before him, will get the letter and will take a look at it to see whether an amendment can be brought to broaden the definition of spouse.
The next section is section 3, which deals with the interest of certain relatives being deemed to be the interest of the member. Section 3 says: "For the purpose of this Act, the pecuniary interest, direct or indirect, of a parent or the spouse or any child of the member shall, if known to the member, be deemed to be also the pecuniary interest of the member."
That particular section does not talk about residence or whether the child or the spouse is living in the same domicile as the member in order for that to be direct or indirect pecuniary interest. I am willing to put the amendment in the Association of Large School Boards in Ontario's own words:
"The pecuniary interest, direct or indirect, of a parent or a spouse or any child or a brother or a sister of the member sharing the same domicile be deemed to be also the pecuniary interest of the member."
Obviously, if those particular members of the family live in the same house as the member, one can say that direct or indirect pecuniary interest exists. But if a child of a trustee here in Metropolitan Toronto, a daughter or a son of this particular member, happens to live and attend school in northern Ontario, I wonder how one is going to make the connection of direct or indirect pecuniary interest when a member makes the decision in Metropolitan Toronto and the son or daughter is in the Sudbury basin.
I would like the minister to take a look at that once again to see if there is any way this particular section can be worded differently and, supposedly, as the Association of Large School Boards in Ontario suggests to the minister.
The third point is in terms of the power of the judge, which is section 10 of the legislation. The Association of Large School Boards in Ontario talks about permitting judicial discretion. In other words, it is saying that the judge has the power to declare a seat vacant, or to disqualify a member and to require restitution of certain amounts of moneys that particular council lost as a result of that member's voting on an issue.
Since it clearly deals with an infraction, we should be talking about the severity of the infraction. Therefore, they are making the point that the judge should have judicial discretion to apply what they call progressive discipline in the matter.
Once again, I think that in some conflicts of interest the situation is not, I do not want to use the expression "black and white," but as clear-cut as this legislation seems to imply. Therefore, judicial discretion, it seems to me, should be allowed in the law in this particular section.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I will take my seat. I hope the minister will attempt to answer these questions, because I am sure that either he or his ministry officials have done some thinking on these matters.
Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Speaker, I would like to go back to one or two points raised by the member for Oakwood (Mr. Grande), who has just finished speaking, and underline, if I can, the question that came up in my community about a former mayor who is now sitting on our police commission, and whose son is a policeman.
I think the first question raised by the member for Oakwood relates to child, versus son or daughter, and whether or not there is some age distinction made by the use of the word "child" in the act as it now stands before us. Of course, the second question relates, as the member for Oakwood suggested, to domicile. Would living at home or not, be covered by what is there in the present language as "direct" or "indirect."
Those questions should be clarified so that we do not have an ongoing concern such as we had in the community of London, Ontario.
4:50 p.m.
Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the various members. When the member for Waterloo North (Mr. Epp), and the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) say they welcome the legislation, we were pleased to put it forward last March. I suppose we could go over the events that took place in this House since March of last year and in the calling of the business of the day. Obviously, the priorities are given not only by the House leader from this side, but in consultation with the House leaders for the other two parties, in determining what items can come forward in the time frames in which we have to work.
I am not sure who happened to be making the remarks relating to the opposition standing in the way of bringing the bill forward. I said very clearly at the Ontario Municipal Board in August of last year that it was our intent to bring forward the bill as soon as possible, but I also recognized there were two or three other acts that even in AMO's estimation seemed to have a priority position. But putting that aside, the fact is that the bill is here today, some 10 and a half months later. I am pleased to hear that the opposition, generally speaking, finds the bill to have general acceptance.
The drafting of this type of legislation is most difficult, and the ministry and the government recognize the input that we have had from AMO, from the Smithers committee, and from the trustees of the school boards, even though at times we have not agreed with some of their input. Indeed, talking to the members from Oakville and Oshawa in relation to the definitions, I have to say it is not easy to find what is an acceptable definition of a particular clause.
Mr. Grande: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: If the minister is referring to this particular seat, it is Oakwood, not Oakville. The government member is from Oakville.
Hon. Mr. Bennett: I was referring to the member's particular seat and if I happened to embarrass him by calling it Oakville, I apologize, although we are pleased to have the member for Oakville on this side of the House and maybe some day we will have Oakwood on this side of the House as well. I say to the member for Oakwood, I hope it has not offended him in any way.
I wanted to indicate very clearly --
Mr. Epp: Next time we hope to have a Liberal member.
Hon. Mr. Bennett: No. It will be a Tory, on this side. The member has been doing that for quite a few years from that side of the House and I expect it will continue. We always appreciate looking at him from this side of the House, I can assure him.
Mr. Epp: Next time you will be over here.
The Deputy Speaker: All right. Stick to the bill.
Hon. Mr. Bennett: The member for Waterloo North is like the Brooklyn Dodgers: Next year. I have to tell him that hope springs eternal.
Mr. Epp: Two or three years they took it, don't forget.
Hon. Mr. Bennett: They had to leave the city to take it, and he is the same.
In the time that this minister has dealt with the definitions along with his parliamentary assistant, and indeed along with people from AMO and the trustees, there has been -- I would not want to say a changing of minds -- but indeed sometimes an expansion and sometimes a reduction of what we wanted to use for definitions. I am sure as we go through the committee hearing, in relation to the questions raised by the member for Oakwood, we will find we have people who will come in and tell us what the definition of a spouse happens to be.
Just to put the member's mind at ease, we have accepted the Family Law Reform Act -- I think that is what he was quoting from -- and I am advised through legal counsel that there is both a narrow and a wide definition of spouse; we have taken the wide definition of spouse, which was an acceptable position by AMO. I am not sure whether the member for Oakwood wants us now to narrow it or exactly what. I do not profess to great understanding of all the ways the member contrives the laws and legal definitions, but if it has worked in the Family Law Reform Act, I would have to think it has a place in any other act that relates to the area of definition of spouse.
Let me suggest to the member for Oshawa, and while he said in jest relating to the relationships, through marriage or other areas, indeed in today's world, with different styles of living conditions, the act has to be as broad and as wide as possible to take into account those situations that exist in our society today and which may not have been recognized by a court two or three decades ago.
I do not want to get into trying to define it. I can only tell the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) we spent many a meeting trying to determine how one best covers the situations alluded to in the definitions of spouse and marriage. Indeed, under child, how does one account for a child who is born out of wedlock? Where does that child fit into the definition of this act relating to conflict?
The member for London North (Mr. Van Horne) made a good point. Where is the conflict to be considered? What if a father is elected to a board and has a son or daughter working somewhere within the jurisdiction or within one of the boards relating to the jurisdiction like the utility commission, which also has some relationship in some communities to the municipal council? We have tried to define those.
I am not saying today there are no differences of opinion. I trust as we go through the committee stage for as long or as short a period as it will take, and I hope it will not be too lengthy, it would be my desire if possible to have third and final reading and royal assent before the House rises from this current sitting. If that is not possible, we can ask for the bill to be put over until the next sitting of the Legislature. The member for Waterloo North (Mr. Epp) has said clearly that municipal councils and people on local utility boards and so on are waiting for this legislation, so the sooner we bring it in the better.
I want to conclude by saying that anyone would be a fool to stand in this House and say the piece of legislation we have is absolutely perfect and foolproof. There is always somebody out there who will find another way to interpret the wording and the verbiage that happens to be in a bill and who will come back with a whole different setting than that of the legal counsels, advisers and outside counsels we have had in relation to designing and developing a bill. I suppose there will always be one person who will set himself that task.
I would not want to be derogatory to the legal profession in any way, but there are generally one or two fellows out there who find, I say to the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Norton), that they are challenged to --
Hon. Mr. Norton: You never hesitated in the past.
Hon. Mr. Bennett: No, I have never hesitated in the past even in the presence of the Premier (Mr. Davis). I used to tell him the legal people find it very interesting, I say to the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes) that when we produce legislation, they consider it as part of their pension plan, as some way to continue to produce employment so they have another income from another client.
Mr. Stokes: They draft it and thereby perpetuate it.
Hon. Mr. Bennett: Then they take the opportunity of leaving the employ of the government and going into the private sector so they can come back and challenge their own drafting.
Mr. Breaugh: That is a conflict.
Hon. Mr. Bennett: If we want to talk about conflict, there we have it.
The Deputy Speaker: You are treading on unsafe --
Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, if you and the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Norton) wish to defend that great profession to which you were called, I welcome you to do so. I think I have more people on my side than you have on your side.
The Deputy Speaker: Order.
Hon. Mr. Norton: I think there are a couple of gentlemen at the table as well.
Hon. Mr. Bennett: But they have now absented themselves from any discussion because of the jobs they have taken. Is the Clerk of the House starting to cross himself?
Mr. Stokes: He has never practised.
Interjections.
Hon. Mr. Bennett: Let me suggest to the member for London North there are always a few letters on my desk from people of a certain political party, and not the one that governs this province, seeking some kind of honour for some of the friends of their political philosophy.
Mr. Nixon: Are you dispensing honours? Do you make appointments to the Ontario Municipal Board?
Hon. Mr. Bennett: I will not get into that. The member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) knows what I told him earlier this afternoon. I will not repeat that publicly here either.
I welcome the comments of the members as the bill goes to committee. Let me say before I conclude my remarks that I am well aware of the fact there are some who believe this legislation should be amended to put restrictions on certain people running for public office. I have heard that and it has been sent in letter form to me.
I have clearly indicated to each and every one of those who have said this legislation should restrict the teacher from running for a school board that this is not the legislation under which to do it, if it is to be enshrined at all in legislation.
Conflict of interest deals with the actions of a member when he or she is elected to a board or council. This bill does not restrict people from running for a council, save and except where a judge has made an order in relation to finding somebody in violation of the conflict rules of this province. If those groups are coming forward to the committee, I will welcome them, but I say very clearly that their comments will be in vain, because they really should be looking at the Education Act and not at the Conflict of Interest Act.
Mr. Speaker, I recommend that this bill go forward to the standing committee on general government, and I trust we can deal with it relatively quickly in the next few days.
Motion agreed to.
Ordered for standing committee on general government.
5 p.m.
CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, MINISTRY OF LABOUR
Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I would move concurrence of the estimates of the Ministry of Labour which concluded last evening after some 22 hours of debate and study.
Mr. Ruston: Mr. Speaker, our critic is busy at present, but he will be up in a few minutes. The member for Hamilton East is ready to go.
The Deputy Speaker: Thank you.
Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, we have gone through 22 hours in the estimates. If I have come to any conclusion as a result of that particular exercise, it is that we have to make some changes in the way we handle the estimates.
I am not sure where we are going when we get the full weight of the minister and his staff working until the early hours of the morning preparing a 210-page, three-hour dissertation on the wonders of his ministry, then proceed to have the opposition critics take a number of hours to respond and subsequently find that we are into a second round where the minister responds to the responses. If I have figured it correctly, we covered almost 10 hours of the 22 hours on the minister's statements and the responses to them.
Maybe that is the route we are heading, putting everything in the opening statements or in the complaints one has about the operation of the ministry and listening to the minister's response --
Mr. Nixon: Have all the debates prepared by staff and read into the record.
Mr. Mackenzie: As I mentioned at the beginning, it started out with a 210-page ministerial statement and there were an awful lot of staff involved for a lot of hours, if some of the people I have talked to are giving me the accurate facts on the matter.
We also know that when the minister responded to my own criticisms, and I did take about two and a half hours, he went well over two and a half hours, or one full session, in his response, which he subsequently cut down, and then told us that he had another 45 minutes to go at the beginning of the next session. When we challenged him on the time he was taking, one of his ad lib remarks was, "Surely you don't want me to waste all the work of my staff and all the efforts they put into responding to the remarks of the opposition critics."
I find it a little galling to realize, as I did this session of the estimates more than any other, that one is up against not only the minister but also a large number of staff people and the number of hours, the research of the deputy ministers and their staff for each of the votes one is criticizing, who spend the kind of time that was spent preparing the minister's statement and his responses to our arguments and criticisms.
I am not sure whether the minister realizes -- I cannot speak for the Liberal critic, and I do not want to leave the wrong impression, because it scares me not one whit -- that we are facing this large, high-paid staff that he can command even to work overtime, while the remarks and information I pulled together are almost totally my own. I can draw on some of the unions for their expertise and the complaints they have left with me. I probably could draw a little more than I do on the single researcher we have involved in it, but members of our research staff are usually working on six different issues at once.
In effect, there is one critic facing a rather awesome array of staff, lawyers, researchers, you name it, in the ministry. Yet on occasion this minister thinks we have been unfair to him or to his ministry. He has actually about 40 people facing one. It says something about the processes we are going through on the estimates these days. That does concern me.
Also, we are not getting the debate on all the votes. This is partly of our own making; I am not laying this all on the minister. One starts specializing and deciding the two or three one wants to cover and put some effort into, and one tends to slide by the other sections of the ministry that probably should face specific questions.
I was disturbed this year probably more than ever. I have been handling the Labour estimates for our party -- maybe for much too long; I am not sure -- since 1977, I guess. I was disturbed at the session we had this time. I did not like the position of the minister himself. I accept that he is a man of some concern and some integrity -- I have never doubted that for a minute -- but here is a Minister of Labour defending his ministry and the government at a time when there is room for criticism like never before.
I find it difficult to understand how he could treat that lightly -- that is not the word, because he tried to indicate to us his concern in one or two of his statements and even indicated he did not necessarily agree totally with the position his government was taking. But he has presided over the Ministry of Labour at a time when it has done more to kick Ontario workers in the teeth than at any time for 10 years, maybe as many as 15 or 20 years.
I am referring to Bill 179. It did not seem to matter very much that workers' rights -- hard-won rights in many cases -- were being abrogated. It did not seem to matter that due process was not there any longer. It did not seem to matter that freely negotiated, sometimes hard-fought, legal, collective agreements, were being effectively ripped up; they had no more validity.
It did not matter that wages, which had been negotiated, were being cut back. It did not matter that something as fundamental as the arbitration procedures in the public sector -- which in many cases were the tradeoff, if you like, for the lack of a right to strike -- was being negated.
"For a period of time," the minister said. Maybe it was a price we had to pay, but it also did not seem to matter that this government had deliberately decided to make scapegoats out of one group of people, the public sector workers; and its ramifications were pretty considerable.
Whether we look at what it also did to the fight to achieve equality in terms of women's wages or the effect it would have on the private sector -- because, although the government never moved in on the private sector as such, private sector workers are feeling the results of this government's action -- it was a rather insidious way to control all workers by setting up the strawman, the public sector workers, as being responsible and clobbering the blazes out of them.
That is exactly what this government did. I would not be very proud if I were the Minister of Labour, if I had sat with the responsibility of that ministry, during this black period in the workers' history in Ontario,
I am simply saying that using the kind of fear that has been used -- and I say deliberately, whether the minister accepts it or not -- on workers in the times we have today is a pretty sad commentary on Ontario and its treatment of working people. It was a philosophy of fear that was used in that legislation.
The minister simply cannot escape some responsibility, regardless of the concern he shows. I have no way of knowing -- I am not even sure whether I would really want to be the fly on the wall listening to what went on within the cabinet -- but no one got the feeling that there was any very heated or great defence of Ontario's workers while this legislation was being discussed or that they really counted in any great numbers.
I cannot get over the comments made to some of my private sector trade unionists by some of the business people who met with the Premier. The business leaders, when they met with the Premier shortly after this course of action was decided, made it clear that they did not want the controls in the private sector. The reasoning was pretty blunt. They felt the climate was such that they could do an even better job than the six and five, or the nine and five in Ontario. But they were equally adamant that the government had to hold tough in terms of the public sector workers. To me that really said something. The fact that this government was party to that kind of situation bothers me no end.
5:10 p.m.
There are a number of areas where we see the workers in the province being short-changed. Most of us had grave reservations about the extent of the coverage of severance pay in the province. With probably 55,000 workers who are in the category of possibly benefiting from it, in a province where we have had 209,000 fewer jobs in the last year, to find out that some 3,600 have collected severance pay is not very comforting either to those workers or to the perception of there being some additional help or fairness in terms of workers who are losing their jobs on a permanent basis.
Quite frankly, I described it as a joke and I am afraid that is what it has become. It is a joke not only in the numbers -- and I think they prove the point we are making -- but also in terms of the fact that if you were part of a group of more than 50, you were not covered in any event. The loopholes were legion in that piece of legislation.
We have not seen any action that protects workers in terms of plant moves or amalgamations. It does not matter which plant one wants to use as an example; we have examples almost daily of companies deciding to rationalize their production -- "rationalize" is a favourite word of some of the corporations today -- moving operations and getting government grants, as we saw in part of the Westinghouse operation, to set up plants in many cases in the smaller towns or around rural Ontario.
In some cases after a hard fight the right to move was offered to the workers, in most cases to a much lower pay rate and without the benefit of being able, in tough times, to deal with their homes or the fact that their families were established. In some cases such an offer was not even made to workers who had five, 10, 15, 20 and as many as 30 and 35 years' seniority.
In example after example, the benefits they had fought for and won, the kind of pension plans they were locked into, the kind of coverage they had, the wages they were drawing and the loyalty they had given to those companies meant nothing if the company decided, for whatever reason -- usually it was a corporate decision made outside this province -- to move that operation.
We have not come up with any real answers to protect the workers in situations like that. The workers are the least important factor. I say that very bluntly. With all the concern the minister may claim to show, that is what the bottom line is. We do not have legislation. We go to companies pleading -- that is really what we do -- that they show their corporate good citizenship and some responsibility for the workers they are leaving behind when they decide to move operations. It is one more sad commentary and one more indication of what is happening to workers in this province.
I spoke of a climate of fear. I do not know all the details yet, but I want to cite another example of something I do not think they could have got away with two or three years ago in Ontario. I got an urgent call yesterday from Timmins, from a staff representative of the steelworkers' union up there, concerning the Kidd Creek mining operation. They were holding a press conference at 3 p.m. yesterday. I have not seen the results of that press conference, but they were going to approach the ministry pleading for some action in this case.
The case involved 94 employees who had been fired by the Kidd Creek company -- which now is owned by the Canada Development Corp. incidentally, and supposedly is one of ours. What riled them was that the 94 who were fired were labelled in an editorial in the local paper as known malcontents and a number of other epithets that I will not use.
They want to know whether the company somehow or other let confidential or personal information go to the press or how some of the comments that were made about these workers came to appear in an editorial. I told them that as far as I knew we had very little control over editorial policies. But that is not what I am concerned with. I am not even sure what action the ministry itself will end up taking when the information in this case gets down to it in the next day or two.
What I am concerned about is that this kind of perception of workers could be allowed to be abroad in the land. I am suggesting that either the actions we have taken, whether it is Bill 179 or something else, or our lack of action in many other areas has produced a climate where it is almost acceptable to kick the heck out of workers in Ontario today. That disturbs me greatly.
My first reaction -- it is almost automatic, I guess, with a trade union background was that I happened to know the steelworkers were in the process of trying to organize in this plant, and they probably cleaned out the organizing group. That is usually what happens when a company decides to go after a union. To my surprise, the comments from the workers involved were, "If that was the intent, they missed almost all the people we had signed up." I do not know what they are doing other than labelling the 94 people they have fired, and that concerns me greatly.
Bankruptcies and receiverships seem to be the order of the day. We are up into the hundreds in the province. What kind of protection do workers have? The minister says he is ready to look at something that might be a made-in-Ontario policy. He says, as the previous minister did, not only once or twice but also going back at least the two or three years I have been after him on the issue, that he was pushing the federal authorities; it was their responsibility. It sounds to me very much like a passing-the-buck operation.
Today, more than ever, we have plants going into receivership and into bankruptcy in Ontario. I do not know what the minister is getting directly or what some of the other members are getting. I do not know whether it is because I am the Labour critic of my party, but there is not a week goes by in which I do not have another call from another union with another plant that has gone under with several hundred or thousand dollars being owed to the workers. I have some cases -- the minister knows of them -- that we have been working on for three years.
In one case, we have the owner of the plant back in the clink, as I understand it, as of last week for the second time for absolutely ignoring orders. It has been a three-year fight; there is money in that operation. I will not go into it here. The minister's staff knows of it very well.
It is one of these bankruptcies where they had the same equipment and were back in business two weeks later and operated for another year, with a lot of questions being asked, and never rehiring the 26 workers who lost about $37,000. I doubt that we will ever see a cent of that money for those workers. I do not want to go after somebody to the point of throwing him into jail. All I am saying is that we have absolutely nothing that gives any priority to workers' wages and benefits in bankruptcy and receivership cases in Ontario.
It is not enough to say that we are looking at it now, as the minister did -- I think he was serious -- or to continue saying that we are writing to the federal authorities. It is not enough because we have been raising it with some vehemence -- this is my fourth year, and I am sure it was going on long before I came to this House -- but obviously we have not got through to the Tory government that the priorities, in terms of what happens to workers and their benefits in these cases, are still at the very bottom of the ladder.
There was an excellent program on W5 the other night about security firms. Most of them are good corporate citizens today, but the size of the security business and the rate at which it is increasing do concern me. I wonder how long it will be before we are looking to private security firms for protection rather than to the police forces in this country and this province.
We still have security firms that hire out their services to companies that have decided for whatever reason, "We are not going to have a union here," or "We are not going to let the workers organize," or "We are going to take them on in terms of a strike situation." These firms are in business really to undermine workers and the rights they are supposed to have under the Labour Relations Act and to steal workers' jobs.
We have the ongoing saga before the board now of the case of Mr. Ivers who, by his own admission, has been involved in -- I forget the number but it is any number of disputes. He has been an employee of a particular security firm, usually hired a couple of weeks before a strike or whatever, and does his job of undermining, probing for weaknesses on the picket line or suggesting actions that do or would lead to an acceleration rather than a lowering of tempers on that picket line.
In spite of appeals that go back at least four or five years, we have seen nothing being done to do something about the security firms that get themselves involved in literally stealing workers' jobs or assisting companies to put down workers and their rights in the province.
First contracts: I recognize the very basic argument over whether or not it works, but nothing has caused as many problems in Ontario, or such bitter and long labour disputes, as newly organized plants -- it does not happen in all of them -- where one gets a management that decides, "No way are they going to take away my rights to run this business the way I want to run it." They put up all the blocks that are in the business.
As in the case of Irwin Toy, even where one finally wins a long, bitter battle, the battle has not ended. Everything in the book still goes to try to undermine and decertify that unit the next year around.
But I might accept a little easier his suggestion that first-contract legislation, or some form of it, will not work if I could see some alternatives coming from this government, other than to step up mediation services. That is just not good enough for someone who has decided workers are not going to have certain rights. That disturbs me.
5:20 p.m.
Progress in bringing women's wages into line with those of men -- equal pay for work of equal value -- is rejected, not because it is not a good idea or that they do not even believe in it philosophically -- I know some on the Tory side do not believe in it. It is rejected, not because the minister does not think it may be right, but because the time is not right and it is too costly.
My perception is that he is then clearly establishing two classes of citizenship, two classes of workers based on their sex, and it does not matter that they might do a competent or better job. It does not matter that they can do the same work equally well. But because one is a woman and not a man, one simply cannot have the same wages.
When the minister does not go that route -- which does have some problems in setting into place in Ontario -- when he even talks about contract compliance or mandatory affirmative action programs to try to get at the gap between the wages of men and women in Ontario, we are told, "No, voluntary affirmative action programs are the only way to go."
Despite the good words we received on the progress they were making in this particular area, the minister has to recognize the overall gap is growing even greater. As we get more part-time workers, there is devastating evidence the gap is getting much larger in that field.
With the control legislation under Bill 179, lower-paid female workers are going to find the gap in the wages between women and men increasing as well. We are not dealing with the problem. One of the proudest arguments we got in the course of the estimates concerned the minister's figures, which showed more women were moving more quickly into higher job positions. I did not bring the figures with me, but I wish I had.
What really shot that down was not that some women were not working up. But when one looked at the percentage of women who had gone into jobs at over $25,000 in the public service of Ontario, sure there was an increase, if I remember correctly, in the range of 5.6 to 9.2 per cent.
But when one looked at the increase in the number of men who had moved into the $25,000 and over positions, it was about twice as many. Some of the arguments were just a little bit phoney; that we were really doing something about the kind of gaps that were there in wages.
I am simply saying here also that it is part of the minister's responsibility. In spite of all of the programs he tells us about and some slight moves that are being made, we are not seeing the heart of the problem dealt with at all. If anything, in terms of overall numbers and percentages, it is getting slightly worse at this point. I find that very difficult to deal with.
These are simple little things that really affect the rights of organized workers -- and none of what I am covering really speaks to the rights that unorganized workers do not have -- but the rights of organized workers in Ontario.
Arbitration and the cost of that is fundamental to being able to operate a workers' organization and to deal with problems that may face them. One of the big arguments that we had -- and I have congratulated the ministry on it, section 45 and the expedited arbitrator system -- was that we were also going to have a panel of arbitrators at a set price.
As the minister knows, if he has done any reading from past years, one of the things that was killing labour relations in this province was that it would cost as much as $1,200 to $2,000 for an arbitrator for a day. That is split between the company and the union.
In most cases, although not all, the companies were not happy either but they might be able to afford it. Except for a few of the big unions -- and even theirs became a real financial burden -- it simply meant that even if a worker had a good case, quite often the cost of going to arbitration stopped him from getting his rights recognized.
In the case of the small unions, they were desperate. That was part of the argument that led to section 45 and the expedited arbitration cases we are now showing some success with in the province. But there are still many cases that go to arbitration.
What is the evidence that has come out in the last year? All of a sudden the prices are right up there again. I had ones that we used in the course of the estimates that were $1,500 and $1,800. Few people will make the argument that it is worth that kind of money.
Granted, both sides will sometimes argue for a specific arbitrator, but it simply says to me, once again, that we are pricing workers, their locals -- especially smaller locals and some of the smaller units -- out of the field. It is absolutely essential if there is to be any fairness or any belief that there is a chance to get redress through the procedures we have set up in the labour relations field.
This is not totally the minister's responsibility, but I worry about what is happening in the whole pension field. We went through a long committee study and made a number of recommendations, but nothing has happened. It reflects directly on the minister's responsibilities too. I sent a note over to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie) today about a couple of specific cases.
More and more, in the windup of some firms that have receiverships and bankruptcies, where there are excess earnings in the pension fund, in many cases some of it, which is supposed to be deferred wages, is going back to the companies. There is a real hassle going on over that, apart from the fact that we have not achieved some of the corrections and some of the improvements I think are desperately needed in terms of workers' future benefits, the pensions they are counting on, that they work to be able to achieve. We have real problems in seeing any progress at all in improving pension benefits for workers.
It may be a minor thing, but people would laugh today if it was suggested we should be taking a look at the minimum wage in Ontario. Once again, the climate of fear that surrounds us is one of the big arguments that is implied, if not actually used by this government. We are almost at the bottom of the 10 provinces and two territories. Ontario is supposedly the richest, the most industrialized province in the country, and we are way down at the bottom in terms of minimum wage. Even the suggestion that we take a look at that particular approach right now causes derision. The suggestion that maybe we are away behind a good many countries gets no support.
I think it is a mark of civilization in the world that, in terms of vacations, in all kinds of countries in Europe, depending on years of service, people are entitled to four or six weeks' vacation. We are stuck with two here in Ontario. Once again, the suggestion of some improvements in benefits for workers does not go over very big, particularly with this government in Ontario today.
Just before I deal very briefly with the safety and health question, I want to go back to a point I missed when I was dealing with the government's attitude. Probably more than anything else, it indicates that open season on workers seems to be the situation in Ontario today. Our arguments about what this government has done to workers and industrial relations in Ontario with Bill 179 is being underlined and supported more and more by organizations over and above the public sector workers themselves and this party, which fought in every way it knew how against that legislation.
The bishops are dead on -- Bishop Sherlock was in his letter -- when they talk about the immorality of what we are doing to workers, the unemployment issue and the questions that have been raised about controls.
In the House today, the comments of the Conference Board of Canada about public sector controls were raised. It is not just the conference board that is questioning them seriously now. The January 26 Globe and Mail had an article entitled "Ottawa Curbs Inhibit a Recovery: StatsCan," saying, "Restraint programs by the federal and Quebec governments could actually prolong the crippling recession, according to Statistics Canada. And it pointed to Ottawa's decision last year to increase unemployment insurance premiums and income taxes as factors that will reduce the income of consumers and delay the spending surge required to end the current slump. As well, StatsCan said, Quebec's decision to roll back the wages of 300,000 public servants in that province could work against economic recovery by removing even more spending power from the economy." That is one of the many arguments we made.
Some very responsible leaders in our religious community, StatsCan and the conference board are all now raising many of the very same questions we in this party raised. This government has never, in my opinion, adequately defended itself on the questions of what it was really going to accomplish by pulling this much money out of the lower-paid workers, how it was going to produce jobs and what it was going to do for the economy. That just underlines my concern with the government and with a minister who held responsibility during the course of these dark events in Ontario.
5:30 p.m.
Finally, the field of safety and health is a story that is particularly bleak. I say this in spite of the spirited defence the minister made to some of the cases outlined by my colleague the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) the other night and in spite of the money, the effort and the big staff he has obviously put in to trying to respond to criticisms that have been made. It is not his defence of his staff; most of them are doing what they can. I can accept that, and I do not necessarily think his staff are the problem.
We have had some real problems in respect to the perceptions, but I think more than anything else it is the attitude and direction of this government. Once again I do not know who other than the minister himself can be held responsible in a case like this. When the minister says: "Hey, you people are overstating it; you are causing concern out there in the work place; you are causing a lack of morale among my staff and my inspectors when you raise these cases," I have to ask him, why did more than 120 groups come before a task force like ours, and a lot did not get heard who wanted to speak to us. Why has the Ontario Federation of Labour become as concerned as it is in the toxic substances field? Their release was pretty damning and pretty devastating.
From his responses to us, the minister obviously does not accept it, but in their condemnation of what is happening in the case of toxic substances, why is it that we have only three -- and I know the minister's response during the estimates that this does not mean they are not acting --
Interjection.
Mr. Mackenzie: Five? Okay.
I can recall sitting in the estimates in 1978. I think Dr. Mustard and others were there when we were first given the list of the seven toxic substances that were to be in place in the 1978-79 season. I think they dropped one. It was six in 1979-80, then it was up to eight in 1980-81 and so on. Today if we had followed even that very limited schedule -- they have gone way ahead of us in the United States and I do not think they are anywhere near adequate -- we would have been up around 20 or 30. We are sitting in 1983 at five designated substances. We are still having problems with some of those, and questions are being asked.
I told the minister at the very close of our estimates that what he may not have recognized -- and I do not know whether he is so totally tuned out or whether it was just a defence of his staff in respect of the safety and health problems -- but I told him that if one thing had brought about some worker participation or reawakened some rank-and-file interest in the unions it was Bill 70. That is one positive thing that came out of it. The schools that are being conducted by the federation, I can tell the minister, are one hell of a lot better than anything that is being done by any of the companies or by the government, even though they assist in some areas.
I almost hate to say this in case the next step will be that this government will do what it can to put down what they have started or to kick the props out from under a little bit of a revolution that is going on in worker involvement in safety and health measures in the work place, but what is happening is that workers who were never before active in unions are starting to look at the manuals, starting to look at what they work with and starting to look at the effects on workers of various substances in the workplace, and they are no longer willing to be the guinea pigs in the industrial work place in Ontario.
So they are starting to challenge. And as they start to challenge, they are finding out the things they said to us, which are the same things we are trying to report to the minister: that the internal responsibility system -- and I may even differ slightly with my colleague on this -- in the long run is not what we have to find a way of making work. But I am telling the minister that up until now it does not work, in spite of what he says, in many, many cases.
There is the odd place where we have a good committee or a responsible company or where the union is particularly strong so they can drive the points home. But the fact is that the authority and power are still with the company, and we are getting rejected in difficult cases, running into problems or delays in what we can do with that committee more often than not.
Less than a year ago, at the OFL safety and health conference attended by several hundred people, there were a number of specific concerns but the almost overriding concern of almost every delegate at that conference was the fact that the internal responsibility system was not working, certainly not as well as it was expected to work or should work.
The number of orders, the lack of ministry enforcement, the lack of prosecution, the lack of charges is another area. It is just like in the women's issues: "We will not go the route of mandatory affirmative action programs; we will go the route of voluntary affirmative action programs." To this very day, in spite of a lot of evidence that there is stonewalling in the field of safety and health in all too many work places in Ontario, the ministry's approach is still, "We have to work this out, talk this out; we have to go the voluntary route.'
We have not made the point that we want charges laid all over the place for the sake of laying charges. We have said that if there were about three times as many, because few are being laid in terms of the total number of orders issued, and if they were followed through with a little more severity on the part of the ministry, we might see that we could get right back down to the number we are laying now because the word would be out there quickly that this minister and this ministry mean business.
We have a problem in terms of the number of orders and repeat orders. We have a problem in terms of a perception that they can get away with it because they are not going to face serious charges. It is not a perception, it is fact, whether the minister will accept it or not. There are problems with the internal responsibility system. We have a record that is much less than adequate in terms of the toxic substances and the rate at which we are regulating in the province.
It is a serious problem. My concern is that either the ministry is tuned right out of what is going on in the work place or it has decided to stonewall the complaints that are being raised. It is not being open enough about the issue, it is not being responsible enough and it is risking workers' support for Bill 70.
Workers desperately want Bill 70 to work. It is an area that has involved people who never before got involved in the labour movement, but it is also an area that is going to result in more cynicism more quickly than anything else I know if some action is not taken quickly by this minister to get it back on track.
If my colleague were here -- he is not feeling well -- he would probably go over at some length some of the minister's responses in terms of the safety and health stuff he presented. There are a number that struck me. It bothered me in particular when we got on to the Canadian General Electric plant. All the answers are not yet known. What bothers me is the ministry's claim that inspectors have been making regular visits and inspecting the plant since 1971.
It is only in recent years we got to the fact that thorium was there and we got the Atomic Energy Control Board into the picture in terms of that perhaps being the missing ingredient. Nobody knows yet, but maybe that is the missing ingredient or what is causing the problem in some sections of that plant.
We got an admission, even though he was defending himself vehemently against the charges this party made, that the workers began to realize something was really wrong. I can tell the members about two or three of the incidents that happened about 1980 when they found there were as many as five women off work at one time with cancerous growths. I told him of some of the feeling there when one woman, who is chairman of one of the committees, pointed out the operation she had and what had happened.
In 1980, they went to the company doctor and, according to the minister's statement here, at that point the ministry was aware of the situation and was assisting them. We get down to the end of his comments, which I will not read into the record. They are now taking a look at a study, at comparisons, at just how serious the problem is and whether we know what caused it. But the methodology is not accepted totally by all sides. They are trying to get that in place so they can complete the study.
The point I am trying to make, which we are missing in all this, is the ministry has been inspecting the work place since 1971. We had the AECB in recently. It moved very quickly when it found there was a substance there and the company has now discontinued it. It may or may not have had something to do with the terrible number of women who have suffered cancers in that plant. We do not yet have the study and the methodology totally in place in 1983. Yet we know there are 25 or 26 women we can definitely identify and a number of others seriously questioned in that operation, and it is not a big operation.
The minister may think that was a defence in the CGE case. To me, it was an indictment of what has happened. It is not necessarily totally his ministry's fault that this thing could have gone on so long, but there was some real evidence in 1980, and at the beginning of 1983 we are not yet officially on to everything we need to set the facts out. My God, we sure have put those workers at risk if we finally find something in that plant.
A much more adequate job could be done by my colleague if he were here. I am simply saying that all the areas I have raised are a real concern to me and tell me something is seriously wrong in the state of labour relations in Ontario. It is probably highlighted more than anything else by the safety and health problems we are having.
I think it is a case of whether the ministry is really going to tackle it, really take the necessary steps and really be willing to lay charges and step up, in a dramatic way, the setting of hard regulations in terms of toxic substances.
5:40 p.m.
This is not a criticism of the minister's staff and should not be taken that way. It is more fundamental. They are probably doing the best they can within the rules of the game they are operating under. I am saying the rules this ministry and this government have set down are nowhere near being adequate.
These are the things that very much concern me about what is going on in the field of health and safety and the field of labour relations. That is why this has been one of the roughest years for me, personally in a serious way, in trying to accept what I see as almost total inaction because of the times, and the perceptions and fears out there and because of a real lack of commitment to the policy changes that are needed.
I give the minister all the personal respect I can, but he seems to be saying, "We are going to do the best we can with what we have, but we sure ain't going to challenge any sacred cows in this cabinet or this government." I am simply saying, that will not have the minister go down in any record books as the kind of Minister of Labour that I think is desperately needed in Ontario.
Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker, I apologize at the outset for not being here at the beginning of these concurrences. To justify that, I might say to the minister I was having a private meeting on a labour matter which we may want to raise with him in days to come once we have checked some of the information we have received.
I do not want to take too long, because after some 22 hours of labour estimates all that needs to be said should have been said. But in the few minutes available to me in this concurrence debate, I want to offer the minister a bit of an overview of how I see the state of labour relations in this province, after having heard that long period of debate and having heard the minister's defence of his ministry and the actions of his ministry.
I might say the tone of the estimates ultimately seemed to be disturbing. The tone was set in the minister's opening comments, 210 pages long, in which he sought to lay out before the committee justification of his stewardship over the past year. What I read from those 210 pages and from the events of the weeks that followed was that this minister appears to view himself as a caretaker of the various acts his ministry administers.
I may differ very substantively with him on other issues, but I share the view of my friend the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) that at the present time, given the state of labour relations in the province, we need more than an administrator. We need an innovator. We need somebody who is willing to say, "Here is where we are, let us move ahead." Unfortunately and regrettably, that is what we did not hear from the minister in the 22 hours of estimates.
I can think of very few instances, in any of the areas, any of the votes, be they occupational health and safety, women's issues, labour relations or employment standards, rarely if ever did we hear that there were any true innovations. To be fair and to be honest, there are minuscule pilot projects here and there, but minuscule pilot projects, which may or may not bring to us some major innovation, are not what is called for at this time. Many of the problems and their solutions are before us. They only need the will to act and it seems to me that is what is lacking in this minister and this government.
I want to say very clearly and forthrightly to the minister through you, Mr. Speaker, that I do not mean any of these remarks in a personal sense. I have found that the minister, on a personal level, has taken great pains to involve himself as much as possible and to seek a resolution of the problems whenever issues have been raised in the Legislature or in committee.
However, it seems to me what the minister has failed to recognize is that the individual issues are very often not the problem itself but the symptom of a greater problem that requires redress and that redress has not been coming.
I would raise the fact that throughout these estimates never once did the minister indicate that we are about to move ahead into bold uncharted paths, even those paths that were promised in the speech from the throne some 11 months ago. The minister dealt with this in his opening statement. We did not get into it in a long discussion, but we were promised legislative action to tighten up the rules and to provide a new breakthrough in the area of wrongful dismissal in the throne speech. Yet some 11 months later, with a huge level of unemployment in the province, he has said in his opening statement and throughout the estimates debate, that was an issue that the cabinet felt it could not move on.
There are so many issues that the cabinet does not feel it could move on because of the state of employment in Ontario today. I could make the other argument that it is probably because of the high levels of unemployment that the issue cries out for immediate attention. There are many thousands of unorganized workers who still have jobs but who, at the whim of an employer, can find themselves in the street with really no tough legislative recourse either to win their jobs back or to exact a penalty from the employer who may have fired them on a whim. The employer may have fired that employee wrongfully, but there is no recourse to receive redress either in regaining his or her employment or having the employer severely penalized for throwing a worker out on the street on a whim.
As long as that area is not attacked with vigour, it seems to me that unorganized workers particularly are going to find it very difficult to stand up for their rights, whether they are under the Employment Standards Act or the Occupational Health and Safety Act, throughout the whole gamut, because that fear nags.
The minister can say that in the Occupational Health and Safety Act there is a prohibition against reprisals and there is this and that and he can go through the list. I am sure the minister is aware, having come from the working world as we all have and having worked in private industry, that there is that nagging fear on the part of an employee, particularly an unorganized employee, that "If I rock the boat, if I raise this issue, I will be out on the street and who then will protect me?" Perhaps the minister can argue that the act will protect them, but I think he argues a case where the employee would say, "That is after the fact and it is a gamble and so I am not going to say anything."
I am very disappointed that in that one area we have had no action. It really highlights the whole attitude of the ministry in a number of other areas which I am going to turn to a minute. That is that in these times of high unemployment, in these difficult economic times, now is not the time to rock the boat.
It seems to me that there is never a good or bad time to rock the boat. If the boat needs rocking, then it should be rocked whether we have an unemployment level of 12 per cent or two per cent. Quite frankly, it seems to me that the failure in the minister's argument -- and the argument came throughout the estimates -- that now is not the time to move on this area or that area, is when is the right time?
His predecessors and his government had carriage of the labour initiatives that were available to him throughout the halcyon days of the 1970s, the days when unemployment was down at four, five and six per cent, were those not the right days? If they were the right days, then why was there no movement then? When will the right day be?
5:50 p.m.
The minister is well aware that we are talking of unemployment levels being at these unacceptably high rates of 12 per cent, 11 per cent or 10 per cent throughout the next couple of years at least. Does that mean there will be no legislative initiatives until the second half of this decade? Will the decade of the 1980s go down as a decade when our initiatives in labour and our breakthroughs in labour came to a screeching halt? I do not think that is good enough.
Let me highlight a particular area to indicate my dissatisfaction, my concern and disappointment at the failure of this ministry to move.
As the minister knows, my friend the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden) and I spent some two or three hours in questions and answers on issues dealing with the vote pertaining to women. Indeed, the minister spent 32 pages in his opening statement on that one area. Yet, ultimately, what we were promised -- if that is the word -- was simply more of the same.
To be fair to the minister, we were promised some movement on equal pay. The minister indicated he was looking at adopting a composite approach rather than that of equal pay for work of equal value. While that may indeed happen, I would remind the minister that has been promised for some period of time, so he will pardon us if we do not hold our breath waiting for that legislation.
But the minister clearly knows even that approach is not likely to wipe out the gap completely. In fact, even if we are to accept all of what Gunderson says, it will leave us 10 per cent short. Many people would argue that in terms of job ghettos, it will not attack that root problem.
It seems to me that the equal pay legislation we now have has been a dismal and total failure. If the minister has statistics which indicate we are having any degree of success, I wish he would state them. But the last time I checked, women's salaries were approximately 60 per cent of those of men across the private sector.
Women's salaries, in terms of the public service, remain at 72 per cent of men's. While there has been some minor progress on the public sector side -- I think the tentative figures indicated a 1.6 per cent narrowing of the gap in the last year, 1981-82 -- that is indeed, as the minister knows, the first significant narrowing of the gap. Even with that it leaves women's salaries at less than three quarters of men's salaries.
If one were to do a quick bit of arithmetic, and we move things ahead at 1.6 per cent a year, it will take some 17 or 18 years before we completely wipe out the gap. This is a goal I think we should be struggling to attain significantly before the year 2000. Surely, it is a goal we can begin to work to attain well before the end of this decade.
Even more incomprehensible was the minister's approach and conclusions on affirmative action. To suggest that voluntary affirmative action has succeeded is to fly in the face of every fact that the minister brought to this committee. The fact that after several years of an affirmative action program which was specifically targeted to companies with more than 500 staff, which number 896 companies, the fact that we have only 204 on side -- indeed, we only added 34 or 36 in the past year -- leaves us with less than one quarter of the major firms in this province on side in terms of this government's stated goal of putting affirmative action programs into place.
Perhaps the most appalling statistic I have heard in terms of affirmative action was that of the 204, only 54 are nonprivate-sector employers. That is out of 233. It has been something that has been suggested perhaps all too often that the private sector has been dragging its feet on affirmative action.
I would argue that perhaps with only 150 out of 663 on side there is some substance to that. After several years of the affirmative action program, there can be no excuse for the dilly-dallying of those who are receiving substantial amounts of taxpayers' money -- in some cases totally funded by the taxpayers -- for not moving ahead with an affirmative action program.
I suggested to the minister and he looked askance at me when I suggested it, but I will suggest it to him one more time, that if those large nonprivate sector employers, some 179, are not willing to move voluntarily then it seems it is high time for this ministry to step in and say: "Well, we will move you." If the minister will not go for mandatory affirmative action across the board surely there can be no excuse for taxpayer- supported firms to go on, year-in, year-out, not acknowledging their obligations in the area of affirmative action.
I could go on at some length but I only want to touch on two other issues which highlight the differences and very real divisions between the way that I view the activities and success of this ministry and the way the minister views it. I will use only one brief example in occupational health and safety. The minister, in his comments on occupational health and safety, spent a lot of time on the internal responsibility system and indicated it is his view it is working. When it was pointed out to him that there are literally thousands and thousands of orders issued under the act, he said that was further proof that it was working.
With all due respect, I would suggest the fact that orders are having to be issued under the act and very often reissued is an indication that all is not well, all is not right. This is not to say there should never be an order, that there will never be a reissuing of an order but it is to say that I think the minister ought to take a second look at the large number of orders that are being issued under the act and asking himself whether that is an indication that the internal responsibility system is working. I think it is an indication of the exact opposite.
I want to deal with one last issue and I will be very brief. I regret greatly, as I am sure my friend the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) does, that we never really got a chance to get into much of a debate on the vote on the employment standards program. The plant closure review initiative is under that program. I want to suggest to the minister an example of where it seems to me the right hand does not know what the left is doing.
In my own community of Windsor, as the minister well knows, a company called Windsor Packing went under some months ago. It filed for bankruptcy. In the last while there have been ongoing attempts to revive that firm and get the workers back on the job rather than selling off the equipment and losing yet another employer in Windsor. It is my understanding -- perhaps the minister can correct me if I am wrong -- that the Windsor-Essex County Development Commission has been working totally in isolation and without the involvement of this branch.
I may be wrong but this is the understanding I have. If it is so, I think it is very regrettable and it points out a need for the minister to ensure that those groups locally -- development commission,. industrial commissions -- who would attempt to help revive companies, would help this government get companies going again, do so with the knowledge of the ministry and with the cooperation of the ministry.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Robinson): I draw the honourable member's attention to the clock.
Mr. Wrye: With that I would say that we will be watching with great anxiety and anticipation for the 1983 speech from the throne when all of the criticisms we have given the minister over these many past hours will be rectified with multiple actions.
Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, most of my friends opposite indicated in their opening remarks that my responses to their responses were rather lengthy in the estimates, and if I started to respond again to this further response, we would be here quite some time. We did have 22 hours in estimates.
The member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) indicated that he did not have the resources of the Ministry of Labour, but I must assure the House that this member and the members for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) and Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye) did not need the resources of the ministry. They both were extremely articulate, complete and eloquent in their remarks.
I have listened to them all and given them great consideration both in the estimates and today. While the temptation is there to respond once again, I think I will simply take my place and thank them for their further remarks presented today.
Resolution concurred in.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, the Order Paper shows us moving to Bill 197 at eight o'clock. It appears now that the standing committee on administration of justice will have concluded its work with Bill 215. It has been agreed that we would ask for consent to have them report at eight o'clock and proceed with committee of the whole House and third reading of Bill 215 tonight in the House.
The House recessed at 6 p.m.